In South Orange, New Jersey, 868 miles away from its home turf, Marquette women’s soccer scored its third goal against Seton Hall with a corner kick header from Carina Murphy. A Coach Allen era special.

The team immediately ran toward Murphy for a group hug.

As they walked to midfield with smiles on their face, the announcer stated, “Marquette is going to come away with three points in their last game of the season!”

Those three points didn’t send them to the Big East finals or the NCAA tournament. This was a game for pride — to end a season with so many ups and downs on a high note.

Coming into the 2024 campaign, nearly 47% of their player minutes from the previous season and four-year head coach Frank Pelaez had left after ending with their worst record since 2018. Head coach Chris Allen, who had never been the head coach of a collegiate soccer team before, said there was nothing guaranteed for them.

“It was going to be a massive learning curve for both the team, myself and our coaching staff,” Allen said. “Being a first time head coach to this (collegiate soccer). Brand new conference, brand new university. There was going to be not only a learning curve but a relationship-building period.”

First-year defender Kiara Clarke, who played at Arkansas State before Marquette, said that Allen’s intentions were clear from the start. They were just like hers.

“Me and Coach Allen, both being new to the university and the program, were in the same position: one foot in the door and one outside of it,” Clarke said. “It was cool to be able to relate to him in the sense that we both go all out with our heart. He’s very emotional, and so am I. We related on that and on wanting to get the best out of everybody, as well as ourselves.”

Allen’s focus for the team’s identity at the start of the season was attacking, pressing, forcing turnovers and scoring. In the Golden Eagles’ first four games, neither a goal or win were captured. Not since the program’s first season in 1993 had they gone so far into a year still searching for a victory.

“We doubled our goal output from last year, but in doing so, we also gave up a couple more goals than we did last year,” Allen said. “We increased our scoring by 200% but we did not decrease the goals against. Because we put ourselves in such a disadvantaged position at times by pressing too high at the top of the field, those are what those statistics looked like.

“I hate to say it, but it played out to be pretty specifically what we thought it was going to be: a lot of different roster lineup changes to figure out who fits our system best in real games.”

Six matches in and only one win, 20 different players had started with 12 making their first career-start at Marquette. Eight had made their NCAA Division I debut and six returnees were on track to play more minutes than they had in their career. Sophomore goalkeeper Elise Krone, who had never seen action in collegiate soccer before this season, started four games.

“We went absolutely full bore,” Allen said. “If I’m being really honest, we were trying to do both right: protect our back line and the goal, but also press a little bit. We weren’t playing truly to ourselves.”

Losing is what Clarke said taught them to be more complete on defense.

“There were times we were a little unbalanced in the back and we’d allow those teams to get open,” Clarke said. “There’s great players in this conference, so if you give them a small window, they will take it. And unfortunately, we had to learn that after giving up goals. I think moving forward, we wanted to focus on being a little bit more disciplined and keeping those corners tucked, because as soon as you unravel them, they just go.”

With three games left before Big East play, the team finally found a rhythm. In those contests, the Golden Eagles outscored opponents 10 goals to one. Junior defender Adrianna Alberts said the run told them something they struggled to believe so far this season.

“Having those games, winning 5-0 and then 4-0, insane because we never scored much last season in those two games going into Big East,” Alberts said. “It gave a huge boost to our energy, and we were all really excited because that assured us that we were capable of scoring.”

Allen said that run of success encouraged the Golden Eagles and set the course for the rest of the year.

“Confidence is the only game,” Allen said. “Everyone says ‘Oh, we need to be more confident.’ You only gain confidence by building something and by truly doing something. You need to see the ball hit the back of the net. It’s just as simple as that.

“There were some really good glimmers and really good moments where you can look back and see where we are wanting to go. You can see the confidence that’s coming out of it. It just needed to be more consistent.”

In conference play, Marquette went 3-6-1 with its wins coming against St. John’s, Providence and Seton Hall — one more win in the conference than last year. Through the six losses, Clarke said the team chose to fight through the adversity instead of succumbing to it.

“We have a pretty good fighting spirit and the culture within the team, on and off the field, held everybody together in those tough moments,” Clarke said. “We had some games where previous teams that I’ve been a part of would have probably given up, but this team never gave up, so that was really good to see.”

During Big East play, Marquette fought at the bottom of the standings. Allen said the team’s mentality about their losses had to shift.

“I am a hate to lose (kind of guy). It’s what keeps me motivated. It’s what keeps me on edge. It’s what keeps me up at night, waking up early, all that type of stuff,” Allen said. “What’s really cool is, our kids, by the end — they did not like to lose, but they started to find a lot more joy in winning.”

In early spring, the team developed the acronym ETHOS, which stands for edge, team-first, honor, one and serve. It was something the players came up with and Allen said the edge is what kept them rounded throughout the entire year. Especially in South Orange.

“You don’t go on the road against Seton Hall, when it’s Halloween and both teams have been eliminated, and come out with a dominating performance if you haven’t packed your edge,” Allen said. “It’s easy when you’re part of a losing program to accept the fact that you’re in a losing program. I think what’s really cool is they did not want to accept it.”

The Golden Eagles finished 6-11-3 overall. Out of 14 of their non-win games, half ended with goal differentials of one or less. Allen said those tight losses and ties are something the Golden Eagles can learn from.

“Our failures this season, our disappointments, are going to set the pattern for successes next year,” Allen said. “Games that we were losing by one goal, we will be winning next year, which I’m excited about.”

This story was written by Ben Hanson. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter/X @benhansonMU.