Fine Enough, I Suppose: Marquette 2, St. Thomas 0

· Yahoo Sports

Joey Buchanan’s insurance goal in the second half was a big spot for the Golden Eagles against St. Thomas. | Credit: Marquette University

I got a chance to actually watch Marquette men’s soccer in person on Wednesday night at Valley Fields, and it was definitely great to watch a Golden Eagles victory.

Was it an outstandingly well played contest by Marquette against a St. Thomas team that was picked to finish in a tie for last in the Summit League? No, probably not, but it goes in the book as a 2-0 victory to move Marquette to 4-1-1 on the year. It’s also keeper Cameron Simpson’s second shutout of the season, and it was definitely a mile better than Marquette’s 3-1 win over Northwestern where the Golden Eagles got outshot 13-4.

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I don’t want to say a sense of worry was building in the first half, not with St. Thomas sitting on just one shot all the way through to intermission. However, there was a sense of “hey, y’all should probably find a way to do something about this scoreless game before too long” floating in the air as Tomiwa Adewumi got taken down in the box and VAR confirmed that the foul happened and was deserving of a penalty kick in the 34th minute. That sent Mads Konrad Horgoien to the spot and he sent the ball into the net for a 1-0 lead.

Shots were 5-1 favoring Marquette at halftime, so while that wasn’t a thrill a minute half of soccer, it was still enough to make you say “hey, this is going somewhere good for the Golden Eagles.” That changed pretty quickly in the second half as the Tommies suddenly had two shots in the first five minutes and Simpson had to make a save on the second one to keep the visitors scoreless.

Either Marquette was being a little more cautious because of their 1-0 lead or St. Thomas adjusted better at what was going on during halftime. It definitely felt like another goal was in Marquette’s best interest, but for a good long while, they couldn’t get it together quite long enough to get that to happen. Then we got to the 74th minute and Ryan Amond played a ball into the middle which UST tried to clear… but it went right to Joey Buchanan.

This was so rapid fire, so bang-bang, that St. Thomas keeper Moritz Krenc has no options but to watch Buchanan’s redirect sail into the net for the 2-0 Marquette lead.

As you would kind of expect, Marquette got outshot in the final 15 minutes, to the tune of a 5-2 margin, and that’s how you end up at shots of 11-9 favoring Marquette at the end of 90 minutes. It wasn’t the cleanest, most dominant performance that you’ll ever see on a soccer field, but it was enough to get the job done.

Remember when I said Simpson had to make a save in the first five minutes of the second half as UST started pressuring Marquette a bit more? Yeah, that ended up as the only official save that Simpson made for the entire match to pick up the shutout. That’s how it goes sometimes.

Up Next: Marquette returns to action this coming Saturday afternoon when Southern Indiana comes to town. The Screaming Eagles are 0-2-2 on the year after taking a 2-1 loss at home to Bellarmine on Tuesday night. That match is set to start at 1pm Central time in the Valley, and ESPN+ will pick up the broadcast.

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