Marquette Outlasts Xavier To Earn 1st Big East Win Of The Season
The Musketeers’ defense limited the Golden Eagles’ scoring but they found the net enough to get to 1-1 in the league.
Tess Osburn powered MU’s offense with a hat trick on a low scoring day. | Credit: Marquette University In the preview for Saturday’s Marquette/Xavier women’s lacrosse game, I pointed out 1) that Marquette has been having some trouble maintaining offensive consistency as games have gotten into high leverage moments and 2) Xavier’s defense has been pretty stingy this season. Both of those things seem to have played a part in Saturday’s 10-7 Marquette victory down in Cincinnati.
Marquette found themselves playing from behind in the early going, as it took a while for the offense to get in gear. Xavier scored the first two goals of the game before MU pulled even and then took a 3-2 lead into the second quarter on this goal from Ella Mautz: Q1 | MU 3, XU 2 Mautz gives Marquette the lead with another quick goal! #WeAreMarquette | #MarquetteWLAX pic.
twitter. com/9PVTQMoWzk — Marquette Women’s Lacrosse (@MarquetteWLax) March 28, 2026 The two teams traded goals early-ish in the second quarter, and XU’s Haley Reeck got the Musketeers back even at four goals a side with 7:12 left before intermission. Marquette was able to be leading at the break because of goals by Isabelle Casucci and Hanna Bodner, but Reeck scored again with under a minute to go, so it was 6-5 Golden Eagles at the half.
Not the most explosive half, especially considering that Marquette was up 19-12 on shots at that point. You’d think that MU should be able to convert a few more shots, but XU goalie Jada Brandon had eight saves in the first half to keep her team right in the thick of things. Marquette flipped that in the third quarter, holding Xavier to just two shots in the entire 15 minutes and scoring three times on their own end.