Marquette’s Mini-Giant Surprises Niagara with Heart-Pounding Win!
A scoreless first quarter made it very clear that we were getting a low scoring contest in upstate New York on Saturday.
Sarah Beth Burns had the fourth quarter game winner in a low scoring battle. | Credit: Marquette University Believe it or not, Marquette women’s lacrosse did not set a team record for fewest goals scored in a win on Saturday. That honor is probably permanently locked into a 5-4 overtime victory on the road against UC Davis back in 2015 .
However, Marquette did score just six goals — a season low — and just two after halftime on their way to a 6-5 victory over Niagara. That moves the Golden Eagles to 5-3 on the year — and head coach Meredith Black to 101 career wins — while dropping the Purple Eagles to just 1-7 this season. Forget goals, shots were hard to come by in this game.
The two teams tied in shots through the first 15 minutes with five each, and MU’s Jillian Howell was a big reason why it was still scoreless after 15 minutes and why Niagara was still on zero at halftime. The freshman netminder in blue and gold had three saves in the first quarter and another four in the second to keep the home team off the board until her teammates could get the offense moving on the other end. For a moment, well, nearly six moments, I guess, it looked like the Golden Eagles had found the power switch early in the second quarter.
Eileen Dooley scored the first goal of the game with 11:55 left before halftime, and that was followed by Hanna Bodner with 10:19 left and Tess Osburn at 9:36, less than a minute later. That’s 3-0 Marquette after a bit of a rough go of things for the first 15 minutes. That would be it for scoring for a good long while before Bodner got her second and Marquette’s fourth with 2:52 left before halftime.
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