The Golden Eagles head to Omaha with an eye on getting their first Big East win of the season.
Marquette is winless in their last three matches.
Marquette has one win in their last six matches.
It’s been a long time since starting the year with three straight shutout wins, huh?
Marquette has a draw in each of their last two matches, and they had to rally to equalize in both of them. 1-1 against Loyola, with Jocelyn Leigh’s goal coming in the 75th minute after the Ramblers scored in the 6th. 2-2 against Butler in the Big East opener, with both MU goals coming past the hour mark after the Bulldogs scored both in the first 35 minutes.
This is clearly not a fun way to go about things, but on top of that, head coach Chris Allen might have to think long and hard about who takes the field on Saturday as his starting 11. Not up and down the roster necessarily — although I think there’s reasons to ask if you’re starting the right players if you’re giving up early goals for 1-0 deficits — but specifically at goalie.
Elise Krone came on at halftime against Butler and made two saves in the second half to provide the defensive backstop that Marquette needed to prop up their two goal comeback to a draw. That was Krone’s first appearance of the season with transfer Hailey Wade getting the nod for every minute of the season up to that point. Based on her only 45 minutes of action, you can clearly argue that Krone deserves the starting spot going forward. Is that the right choice? Allen didn’t think so until he was down 2-0 at the half in the team’s Big East opener, so what changes about the coaching staff’s evaluation of both of those goalies? Or was it just that night with Wade making one save while letting in two goals in the first half?
With a goals-against average of 1.29 and a save percentage worse than 64% to this point of the year, I think we could easily argue that Wade isn’t getting it done with this team. The catch is that Krone was at 1.70 and .764 last season. The save percentage is definitely better, so if you can get the field defense (or the offense!) to push the ball down the field more, then that save percentage gets more useful. 2025 Marquette is outshooting their opponents on average this year while 2024 Marquette was getting outshot. In general, this year’s Golden Eagles are doing their goalie a favor, but perhaps Wade wasn’t up to holding up her end. If Krone can repeat her .764 when getting fewer threatening chances thrown at her? Maybe that’s a net (soccer word!) positive for what Marquette’s doing on the field.
Big East Match #2: at Creighton Bluejays (4-5-1, 1-1-0 Big East)
Date: Saturday, September 27, 2025
Time: 4pm Central
Location: Morrison Stadium, Omaha, Nebraska
Streaming:ESPN+
Live Stats:Stat Broadcast
Twitter Updates: @MarquetteWSOC
Marquette is 7-7-3 all time against Creighton. There were just four meetings before these two teams met up in the Big East, and the Bluejays held a 2-1-1 edge there. Marquette had the early edge when these were league contests, but now they have just two wins in the last eight meetings, including a 1-0 loss in Milwaukee last year.
Creighton hasn’t lost to an unranked opponent since August 28th.
That was a 2-0 loss at Western Michigan where the Broncos tallied twice in the last 30 minutes. Since then, the Bluejays have gone 3-2-1, with the losses coming against #3 Duke and #20 Georgetown and the draw was against #13 Arkansas. Their most recent match came on Wednesday afternoon — god bless you and your lack of lights, Villanova — and Creighton came away with a 1-0 win over the Wildcats after a 14th minute goal from Olivia Sides. Going by shots, that contest was pretty even all the way through, although Creighton had the only two shots of the match past the 70 minute mark and all of their last four shots had to be shutdown by Villanova’s keeper to keep the match at just 1-0.
Creighton’s goal scoring has been weird this year. Ariana Mondiri is their top point getter with a team high three goals, a team high two assists, and a team high eight points. None of that is good enough to officially break her into the Big East’s top 10, although that’s a technicality because she’s tied for the 10th most goals in the league and the league website only goes out to 10 places. That’s not the weird part. The weird part is Jalen Chaney and Anna Bragg are the only other two women to score more than once this season…. and they have played 202 and 172 minutes out of 900 so far this season….. and that’s partially because they’ve only played in six and seven matches respectively out of 10.
Somewhere, Tori Gillis quietly thinking “WHY NOT ME” as she has the second most shots on the team in 814 minutes played but just one assist as far as points goes.
Alyssa Zalac is coming off her first full shutout of the season after blanking Villanova earlier this week. I have to say “full” shutout because she played 83 minutes in Creighton’s 4-0 blanking of South Dakota where Kailey Hall finished off a game where the Bluejays blanked the Coyotes not only in the goals column, but in the shots column as well, 19-0. The shutout against the Wildcats has lowered Zalac’s goals-against average to 1.71 on the season and advanced her save percentage to .630. These are not good numbers, but that’s what happens when you allow 13 goals in five matches against top 45 opponents according to the current RPI calculations.
Follow Anonymous Eagle on social media
Facebook: AnonymousEagle
Instagram: AnonymousEagleSBN
Bluesky: AnonymousEagle
Category: General Sports
