Marquette Men’s Soccer Preview: The 51st Milwaukee Cup!

For the fourth time in series history and the third time since 2001, Marquette will be attempting to set a program record for the longest run of holding the Milwaukee Cup.

Marquette secured possession of the traveling trophy between themselves and crosstown rival Milwaukee back in 2022 with a 5-2 victory over the Panthers. The past two years have seen the yearly contest go to a 1-1 draw, and draws mean the holder keeps the trophy, thus it has stayed with Marquette.

MU’s first three-year run with the Cup came back in 1984 when Marquette secured a 0-0 draw after a pair of shutout wins, the first of which just happened to be Marquette’s first ever win in the series. There wouldn’t be another run that long in the Avenues West neighborhood until Marquette won in 1998 and followed that up with two more wins the next two seasons before losing the Cup back. In 2014, Marquette regained the Cup with a 2-0 victory and a pair of ties kept possession with the Golden Eagles.

That’s it, that’s a full recap of the times that Marquette has held the Milwaukee Cup for three straight years. They’ve never kept it for a fourth year, and in fact, no one has held the cup for four straight years since a Milwaukee run from 2004 through a tie in 2007 to keep it with the Panthers until Marquette won in October 2008.

There’s history on the line on Tuesday night on the East Side.

David Korn’s team is going to have to shake off their first loss of the season which came as a loss in their Big East opener in order to maintain possession of their streak against Milwaukee. That contest against Creighton ultimately could have gone in either direction because the Bluejays didn’t score until past the 80 minute mark of the match. That’s something of a rare power outage for the Golden Eagles as they had 10 goals in five matches coming into Friday’s league opener against the Jays.

There’s also the question as to why Cameron Simpson started in net for Marquette. That’s not a knock on him, he made several good to great stops against the Bluejays and even the one goal he let in hardly counts as Simpson letting it in. But it was just his second appearance of the season, and his only other start was against a very clearly outclassed Chicago State team. That wasn’t going to be the case with Marquette and Creighton in the league opener, so hopefully everything is okay with Marten Brink, MU’s usual starter this season.

Match #7: at Milwaukee Panthers (2-2-4, 1-0-1 Horizon League)

Date: Tuesday, September 23, 2025
Time: 7pm Central
Location: Engelmann Field, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Streaming:ESPN+
Live Stats: Stat Broadcast
Twitter Updates: @MarquetteSoccer
Bluesky Updates:@AnonymousEagle

Marquette is 12-31-6 all time against Milwaukee. The series dates all the way back to 1973, the very first year of soccer at Marquette. It took until 1982 for MU to get their first ever win in the series, and that kind of explains why the all-time series is still tilted towards the Panthers. However, things have been drifting in Marquette’s direction since 1998 or so. MU is 9-11-5 since then and 5-6-4 since 2008.

Milwaukee is…. not good. If we throw out their 9-1 victory over Chicago State this season, they have been outscored 6-5 while posting a record of 1-2-4. That CSU game must have been insane to watch, as Milwaukee outshot the Cougars 24-13 and the final goal of the match came with 14 seconds left in regulation. Just shots going everywhere and nine of UWM’s 11 shots on goal went in the net.

Even with an overall record of 2-2-4, Milwaukee comes into Tuesday night undefeated in their last five contests. They beat IU Indy 1-0 on Saturday to follow up a pair of scoreless draws against St. Thomas and Cleveland State. Those two came after the Chicago State game, and so their streak goes back to September 5th when they drew 1-1 with Eastern Illinois. However, they miiiiiight have been a little bit on the lucky side to beat the Jaguars on Saturday. Shots were 23-7 in favor of Indy, including 13-2 in the first half. That was the half when Milwaukee scored their goal, going up 1-0 in the 8th minute on a goal by Bienvenu Djunga. They were lucky to draw with Eastern Illinois as well, as they got the equalizer in the 83rd minute…. but also EIU’s goal was a penalty kick in the 27th minute. Lots to chew over there.

Fernando Pirry is Milwaukee’s top goal scorer to this point of the year with four. However, he scored all four against Chicago State, so that’s questionable at best. Djunga is Milwaukee’s leader in shots this season with 24, and Pirry is second with 18. It’s not that Pirry’s lead in goals is undeserving with those shot numbers, it’s just that you can’t score four against one team and march around town proclaiming you’re the best, that’s all. Neither of these men is UWM’s points leader, as that’s Dominic Zuniga. He has three goals and is tied with teammate Alejandro Zuniga — no relation, apparently? — for the team lead in assists with three for a total of nine points.

Marquette is probably going to get Nic Diana in net on Tuesday night. He has played every minute this season except for the 90 against Chicago State, which went to Nolan Meyer. Diana has a goals-against average of 0.86 and a save percentage of .846 this year, which is better than what he was doing for Purdue Fort Wayne last year. Those kinds of numbers tell us that whatever else is going on with the Panthers on the field this season, Nic Diana is not their problem, and finding a goal against him might be kind of difficult.

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