Technically, it’s a come from behind victory to move the Golden Eagles to 1-0-2 in the league.
For about seven minutes on Wednesday night, it seemed like Marquette women’s soccer might be in for a bit of a fight against St. John’s. The visiting Red Storm got the first shot of the match about 90 seconds in, missing high, and then the second shot of the match turned up as this deflected strike from Daniela Monzon.
Bit of an unlucky situation there for Marquette as it probably wasn’t a terrible idea for Clare Shea to stick her foot out, but also maybe Hailey Wade easily makes the save if it’s not tipped up and over her head. Given the Johnnies’ offensive struggles this year, gifting them a goal before you’ve even attempted a shot is a bad way to go.
After that, though, things turned towards Marquette and just kept turning. That goal was STJ’s second shot of the match, and their third attempt would be saved by Wade in the 34th minute. Shot #4? Not until the 82nd minute. In the meantime, Marquette unleashed hell. The Golden Eagles outshot St. John’s 12-1 for the rest of the first half after Monzon’s goal, and the relentless pounding eventually punched their way past Red Storm keeper Kayla Bower.
When they finally did find a way through? It wasn’t exactly the prettiest thing in the world. A free kick in the 23rd minute from Coco Dorfman found the head of Ella McAleenan, and Josie Bieda just ran into it to get it in the net. Can you bellybutton a shot? Certainly looks like that’s what Bieda did here.
Marquette would end up going into the locker room at halftime with a 2-1 lead. It was another set piece paving the way for the Golden Eagles, and officially, it goes into the book as an unassisted goal for Capri Oliviero, her first career strike.
Feels like maybe Emily Fix deserves an assist for the corner kick, but I get how the ball knocking around so much leads to no one getting the helper there.
Hey, remember Clare Shea being kind of responsible for the goal from St. John’s earlier in the match? Yeah, the soccer gods saw fit to fix that in the 49th minute. Kayla Bower parried away Molly Keiper’s corner kick, but Dorfman collected and fired. Bower got a hand on that, too, but the rebound went straight to Shea, who buried it just inside the post for the early second half insurance goal.
Shea’s goal was the third of 12 shots in the second half for Marquette, and that’s how they ultimately finished the match outshooting the Johnnies 24-4. The final score could have been so much more lopsided, but STJ’s Kayla Bower made a career high 10 saves and the Johnnies got a team stop somewhere along the line for 11 total stops to keep the margin at just 3-1 at the final horn.
How about just under two minutes of highlights — it’s just multiple angles of Marquette’s three goals — courtesy of GoMarquette.com and ESPN+?
Up Next: With Marquette moving to 1-0-2 in Big East action here, that means their quest moves from “get first win” to “stay undefeated.” The next stage of that comes up on Saturday night, when they welcome DePaul to the Valley for a 7pm Central time start on ESPN+. The Blue Demons are 3-7-1 on the year and 0-2-1 in the Big East after falling 1-0 to Villanova on Wednesday afternoon.
Category: General Sports
