About a year ago, Marquette women’s lacrosse head coach Meredith Black sat with her team in the film room disappointed.
It wasn’t because they were rewatching a mistake on an offensive break or a defense they should have read better — it was because of where they weren’t: at the Big East tournament.
“We shouldn’t be sitting here in our street clothes,” Black said, reflecting on that time. “We need to do everything we can from this moment till next year to make sure that we’re not sitting in the same seat.”
With three conference wins, one over a ranked opponent, Marquette clinched a spot to the conference tournament after its 20-6 win over Butler two weeks ago.
“It’s where we’re supposed to be,” Black said.
Making the Big East tournament was Black’s old standard. Now, she wants winning a game in the tournament to be the new one.
Marquette’s matchup in the first round of the tournament will be the Big East regular season champion Denver: a foe the Golden Eagles have never won against. Marquette’s loss 15-9 against the then No. 19-ranked Pioneers in April was the closest final score between the two since 2021 (13-12 in double overtime). Denver has climbed two ranks in the top-25 since and went undefeated in conference play. It won against Georgetown in the game to crown the regular season champ 11-5. In March, Marquette lost to the Hoyas by one (11-10).
Following that loss to the Pioneers in April, everyone on Marquette has wanted the matchup back.
“Our goal as a team is to try to stay pretty steady, pretty even-keeled, and not get too high and not get too low on the things that go wrong,” Black said about playing Denver in the first round of the conference tournament Thursday. “We want to be living in the present.”
This has been her mentality since a few games into the 2026 campaign and one philosophy she attributes the team’s success.
In the first couple games, she and the team were focused on wins. While those sure help a team gain notoriety, Black soon shifted focus toward the process of bettering the record. And even when the outcome of a game in the postseason means continuing to play or going home, she believes living in the “power of the now.”
Black has every reason to focus on winning. Marquette has never won a Big East tournament game and hasn’t played in one since 2023. Out of the program’s 13 seasons before this year’s, the Golden Eagles have only made the postseason four times. But still, she keeps her and her team’s eye on the ball, “focusing on the opportunity rather than the pressure — the process over the outcome.”
She applies this by treating the team’s practices the same as they would a preseason one.
“You can never stop learning. You never stop getting better,” Black said. “We have to continue to focus on (how) those are the things that got us in this position in the first place.”
When Tess Osburn, a senior attacker, was a first-year in the 2023 season, she thought making the Big East tournament was normal. The time away from the postseason has not only made her hungrier, but also the younger players who look up to her.
Osburn reminds those younger players to not take this upcoming time for granted. She sure as heck won’t.
“I don’t want to leave anything on the field and have regrets about that,” Osburn said.
The Golden Eagles continue to work through a couple kinks before they take the field against the Hoyas: Slowing their fast breaks and the smaller details of their offensive setups.
It’s going to take quite an effort to take down the Pioneers, though. They are averaging 18 goals per game, almost five more than Marquette (13.67). In the regular season, the Golden Eagles are shooting on goal just as efficiently as Denver, but in their game against the Pioneers earlier this month, they only shot .529 and Denver scored every shot on the cage. The Pioneers outscored the Golden Eagles in every quarter but the third.
This time around, Black is emphasizing playing full throttle no matter the situation, if things are going well or not.
Marquette did this in late February against Arizona State when, despite losing, brought the final score within three after ending the first quarter down 4-1. And again against UC Davis by winning 13-12 despite the Aggies’ late comeback in the fourth.
Obviously, Marquette is playing with an end goal to hoist the Big East tournament trophy. But Osburn, as with probably many other seniors, is also fighting for a simpler thing: additional time with their teammates.
“I get super upset thinking about it because I’m definitely not ready. And thinking about leaving is like… I get…” Osburn took a deep breath, wiped some tears away and continued. “It’s just hard.”
Whether it’s for a chance at the program’s first tournament win or for Osburn, another game, another warmup, another meal with teammates — nay, lifelong friends — the psyche that got the Golden Eagles to this point remains the same.
“Focus on us,” Black said. “Focus on 60 minutes. Focus on living in the present.”
Because it has a tendency of quickly becoming the past.
This story was written by Benjamin Hanson. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter/X @benhansonMU.
