Liza Karlen is inevitable.

It doesn’t seem to matter what teams do to try and stop the senior forward, she will make an impact regardless.

Saturday, Karlen led everyone with a game-high 25 points and 11 rebounds, also scoring the nine of Marquette women’s basketball’s final 11 points in a gritty, hard-fought 59-48 win over Butler Saturday at the Al McGuire Center.

“It honestly just gets back down to wanting to compete, I just want to win,” Karlen said. “And I’m going to do whatever it takes to get my team there.”

Marquette head coach Megan Duffy said she thought Karlen got better as the game went on.

“I though the first half, she was a little bit rushed with some of her shots and reads, and then I just thought she settled in just really nicely,” Duffy said. “She’s got that little jumper that’s so pure, and then was able to score inside and even get a couple of rebounds.

“That was really good and timely, and she just doing all the steady things for us.”

But before Karlen went the extra mile to secure the win, the game was anything but over.

The Bulldogs (9-11, 1-8 Big East) went on a 9-0 run to start the fourth quarter and tied the game 48-48, which forced the Golden Eagles (16-4, 5-4 Big East) to call timeout.

After that, Karlen went to work and scored the next six points before Kenzie Hare got a layup to give Marquette the 56-48 advantage with 1:36 remaining.

The Bulldogs would go 0-for-2 on their last two attempts and commit one turnover, leading to the 11-point Golden Eagles win.

Hare has another big performance

Hare’s 3-point shooting has elevated both her and Marquette all season. Saturday, the sophomore guard finished with 19 points, going 7-for-13 overall and 4-for-8 from beyond the arc.

The Naperville, Illinois native was a big part of the Golden Eagles’ 23-8 third quarter which put them back in the lead after trailing 31-25 at halftime.

She scored a game-altering 3-pointer to cut Butler’s lead to one point and followed it with a layup, which gave Marquette a 36-35 advantage and forced a timeout from the Bulldogs. Out of the timeout, Hare scored another 3-pointer to mark a personal 8-0 run.

“The great thing about Kenzie is she can create a little bit. She’s confident, she misses a shot, she honestly doesn’t really care, she keeps battling,” Duffy said. “You’re seeing her game evolve with her pull up game, she hit the one late, she’s getting downhill and then obviously, her three is very good.

“The more she’s out on the court, and the more she’s in those positions to be successful as a sophomore, the better the situations will be for her.”

Hottinger moves back into starting lineup

Graduate student forward Frannie Hottinger was re-named to the starting lineup for the first time in four games, sending first-year forward Skylar Forbes back to the bench.

“I always say practice by practice with all that,” Duffy said. “Frannie started a lot of games for us and I just felt like after the UConn game, of just getting back to that original starting lineup.

“Skylar has been awesome for us, just learning on the on the fly and getting some valuable minutes and I thought she had some really good possessions that she didn’t necessarily finish today. She’s doing the right things and she’s gonna have a lot of great basketball ahead of her.

“Just felt like Frannie deserved to be back in that lineup to bring us some stability as that veteran leader for us.”

Statistical leaders 

Senior guard Jordan King scored seven points, and picked up eight rebounds and seven assists.

For Butler, Rachel Kent and Caroline Strande were the only two Bulldogs to score double digits, putting up 12 and 13 points respectively.

Up next  

The Golden Eagles hit the road to face the No. 21 Creighton Bluejays (15-3, 6-2 Big East) Wednesday at the D.J. Sokol Arena at 4 p.m. CST. Marquette beat Creighton 76-70 in December in the teams’ first matchup this season. 

“Creighton is really good and playing at their place is really hard so we’ll settle back in and get to work watching the film and figure out the game plan,” Duffy said. 

This article was written by Sophia Woods. She can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter/X @SophiaWoodsMU.