As thunder rumbled outside and AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” rang out inside Valley Fields, Marquette women’s lacrosse looked to make some thunder of its own in its non-conference finale.
And the Golden Eagles did just that.
Two days after tying a program record of 10 wins, Marquette (11-1, 1-0 Big East) broke the record by earning its 11th win of the season Tuesday afternoon by defeating Ohio State (5-8 0-3 Big Ten) 13-12.
“I’m excited and pumped and so proud of the girls,” head coach Meredith Black said. “And I said to them after, ‘all we had to do was win by one, we had to score one more goal than them. And that’s it, you guys did.’ And so I’m just really proud.”
New Program Record
Entering the day on the cusp of breaking her own individual record, senior attack Mary Schumar broke the program record for assists in a season.
With three assists on the afternoon, Schumar now sits at 44 on the season. This leads all NCAA Division I men’s and women’s lacrosse.
“It feels great,” Schumar said. “I just want to give lots of credit to my teammates, defense really stepped up.”
Statistical Leaders
For Marquette, senior midfielder Lydia Foust led scoring with four goals. Both Schumar and junior midfielder Leigh Steiner had three assists.
For Ohio State, sophomore midfielder Annie Hargraves led with three goals, and the Buckeyes had two players with one assist each. Junior goalie Regan Alexander notched 15 saves, a career high for her.
Another game of runs
After tying the game at one a piece, Marquette played from behind as Ohio State scored three unanswered goals to take a 4-1 lead.
With momentum shifting towards the Buckeyes, Black called a timeout.
Then the momentum shifted towards the Golden Eagles.
Senior attacker Shea Garcia ended Marquette’s scoreless drought with her 27th goal of the season. Garcia’s goal sparked a 5-0 run over the final minutes of the first quarter.
Schumar said the Golden Eagles ability to shift the momentum came from connecting their defense to their offense.
Black jokingly said it was not her words during the timeout that woke Marquette’s offense up.
“We just said, ‘Hey, we got to dig in, we let the game got out of our control in some ways,’ Black said. “In a way we sort of like we’re focusing on the wrong things. We weren’t really going full speed weren’t taking care of the ball. So we had to literally take a breath, settle down and just play our game, fall back on our fundamentals and just go. And that is all I said and that is what they did.”
Ohio State scored three minutes into the second quarter but Marquette then responded with another extended.
Black said a focus for her team in the game was to build off of what was working in moments, knowing Ohio State could counter.
“(We) just said, ‘When we do something great, let’s build off of that,'” Black said. “So anytime we go down or they got on a run, we said, ‘Hey do one play and build off of someone else’s play and (take) one thing at a time.”
Claw back
After a slow third quarter, Ohio State showed some life, scoring three quick goals to bring the score to 12-11.
As Marquette’s lead began to dwindle, Black called a final timeout with 11 minutes to go.
“When we didn’t have the momentum, the whole game like we’ve had in some games, we really had to fight for the momentum,” Black said. “That was a big focus in the timeout and the huddles as well to say, ‘Hey, when we do something great, let’s build off of that’ and anytime we got down or they got on a run, we just said, ‘Hey, do one play and build off someone else’s play.'”
Foust ended Ohio State’s run with a goal as Marquette held on to defeat the Buckeyes.
Up Next
Marquette returns to Big East play as it continues its home stand on Saturday when it welcomes in Xavier at 2:30 p.m. CST.
This article was written by Emma Kroll. She can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @emma_kroll_.
