Marquette Women’s Soccer Preview: at #17 Baylor & vs Loyola Chicago

Marquette has a double whammy facing them as they go into a pair of matches this weekend.

No, it's not because they're facing a ranked Baylor team, clearly their toughest test of the season so far.

Whammy #1 is because this is Marquette's first match without leading scorer Megan Murray. She's off at the Asian Games with the Philippine national team for the month. She'll miss at least five matches, maybe more, depending precisely on when she returns to North America. Murray has three goals to lead Marquette so far this season, and she's also the only Golden Eagle with 10 or more shots through six matches. Murray's all the way up at 13 attempts, and that's after going without a shot against both Truman State (she only played 16 minute) and Wisconsin.

Whammy #2 is the fact that Murray hasn't scored since Marquette's second match of the season… and Marquette hasn't score at all as a team since Kaylie Sheehan found an equalizer in the 79th minute against Wisconsin. That's two straight matches without a goal and just over 200 minutes.

On one hand: Losing your top goal scorer is not good. On the other hand: She hasn't scored in four straight matches. On a secret third hand: No one has scored in either of the last two matches. How does Marquette adjust to defenses not paying attention to Murray, or is the fact that defenses now don't know who to look at to worry about the most actually helpful to the Golden Eagles' offensive issues?

Here's another question: How much pressure has Murray generated to this point of the season to help the Marquette defense? The Golden Eagles haven't allowed a non-penalty kick goal at all this season through six matches. That's outstanding work no matter how you slice it, and limiting opponents to less than nine shots per match is helping out a lot there. Is Murray's offensive work partially responsible for keeping the ball away from freshman keeper Mia Hurd? How will Marquette adjust without Murray and keep the offensive pressure up to keep doing Hurd a favor over the next month?

There's a lot going on here, and it's possible that we won't even learn anything useful on that topic from Thursday night just because of the quality of the opponent!

Date: Thursday, September 10, 2026 Time: 7pm Central Location: Betty Lou Mays Field, Waco, Texas Streaming: ESPN+ Live Stats: Stat Broadcast , in theory

This is the first ever meeting between Marquette and Baylor.

Baylor has been all over the place in the United Soccer Coaches poll this season. Receiving Votes, #6, Receiving Votes, and #22 last week before moving up to #17 now. Beating #10 Arkansas 4-1 to start the season went a long way towards grabbing attention, but so did losing 3-1 to Texas State at home 11 days later. It was just the kind of attention that you don't really want. They have won three in a row since then, toppling Texas, Pepperdine, and LSU to get to five wins on the season.

Eight different women have combined for their 14 goals to this point of the year. Lauren Omholt and Grace White are your leaders with three goals each. Omholt has to settle for a tie for the team lead in points, as Theresa McCullough has two goals and four assists to get to eight points as well. To give you an idea of what kind of style of play we'll see from the Bears, Baylor has 18 assists this season on their 14 goals, led by those four from McCullough. Nine different women have a helper already, and six of them have two.

Azul Alvarez is your keeper here, and things haven't been super great for her. She's stopping less than 70% of shots on goal, and that's after stopping all three attempts against LSU last time out. Thanks to giving up three goals in the Texas State match, Alvarez is letting in 1.17 goals per 90 minutes this season. If you wanted to lean towards "it's going to get better for her," that's a safe bet. Alvarez stopped 83% of shots while posting a goals-against average of 0.82 last season that earned her All-Big 12 First Team honors.

Match #8: vs Loyola Chicago Ramblers (2-2-2)

Date: Sunday, September 13, 2026 Time: 1pm Central Location: Valley Fields, Milwaukee, Wisconsin Streaming: ESPN+ Live Stats: Stat Broadcast

Marquette is 5-1-1 all time against Loyola Chicago. Three of the meetings were back in the 1990s, and then there was a 2005 and a 2008 out of nowhere. The rivalry popped back up in 2014 , and now this is the first time that the Golden Eagles and the Ramblers have faced off in consecutive seasons since the first two meetings. Last year's contest went to a 1-1 draw in the Valley .

Loyola's season has gone all over the place so far this season. 1-0 campaign opener home win over Central Michigan? Check. 5-0 loss on the road against an Iowa team that was earning top 25 votes? Check. Getting outshot 21-3 by #5 Michigan State in East Lansing but only giving up a goal in the 83rd minute for a 1-0 loss? Check. 2-0 home win over Illinois State? Check. Back-to-back scoreless draws against cross-town rivals Northwestern and DePaul? Check. As I write this preview ahead of both matches, the Ramblers have yet to score a goal in the month of September, although they do have to visit Northern Illinois on Thursday night, so we'll see.

There are just three total goals scored by Loyola this season, which makes Maggie Schmidt the most important offensive player on the team. She has two of the three goals, and Sarah Collins has the other. With that said, Josslyn Weissman is the leading shot taker on the roster. She has seven attempts to lead Loyola there, but as you can tell, none of them have gone into the net yet this season. Weissman had three goals for Manhattan last season, so we'll see how this all shakes out as an offensive plan against the Golden Eagles.

It looks like a pretty safe bet that we'll see Allison Deardorff patrolling the net in this one. The senior from Itasca, Illinois, has played every minute so far this season and is up to 28 saves already. She's stopping over 82% of shots on goal, which is a little bit propped up by 10 saves against Iowa and another eight against Northwestern, but the math is what the math is. The two scoreless draws the last time out have dropped her goals-against average down to an even 1.00 per 90 minutes right now.