Women's Soccer to Host Wisconsin and Northwestern Sunday

April 11, 2008

MILWAUKEE - The Marquette women's soccer team will close out the home portion of its spring schedule Sunday, April 13, at Valley Fields on the turf field. The Golden Eagles will begin the day with a 9:45 a.m. match against Northwestern and will play Wisconsin at 1 p.m.

The Golden Eagles are coming off back-to-back stellar weekends of play where they defeated Duke (3-1), Green Bay (5-0) and Loyola (2-0), and tied UW-Milwaukee (1-1) and UNC Greensboro (1-1). For the spring, Marquette has out-scored its foes, 12-3.

"We are looking to build on our play from the past two weekends. Improvement is key and the team has responded very well thus far," said head coach Markus Roeders. "We are getting better and the win against Duke showed that this group has tremendous potential. The players are eager and excited to take on a couple of teams from the Big Ten. It should be entertaining."

Marquette has seen many different players step up offensively as eight Golden Eagles have scored goals over MU's last five matches. Ashley Bares, Julia Victor, Danielle Martens, Michelle Compty, Kristi Laurenzi, Kelli DeBarge, Anna Sawicki and Rosie Malone-Povonly have scored at least one goal in spring play. On the other end of the field, Marquette's defense has been terrific allowing just three goals and shutting out two of its opponents.

"What has been impressive so far is the flexibility we have within our team to move players into various positions and the number of different players that have scored goals in five games. Defensively, we are sound and need to keep building on our principles and foundation," added Roeders.

The Golden Eagles will first play Northwestern who went 9-7-4 overall and finished seventh in the Big Ten at 4-4-2 in 2007. Purdue ended NU's season with a 3-1 defeat of the Wildcats in the first round of the Big Ten Tournament.

Next for Marquette will be state rival Wisconsin who struggled under first -year head coach Paula Wilkins. The Badgers finished the 2007 season 6-11-1 overall, 2-8-0 in Big Ten play. The last time Marquette and Wisconsin played was in an exhibition match at Camp Randall as a tune-up for the 2007 season.

Schedule of Matches
9:45 a.m. - Marquette vs Northwestern (2x35)
11 a.m. - DePaul vs Wisconsin (2x35)
1 p.m. - Marquette vs Wisconsin (2x40)
2:25 p.m. - DePaul vs Northwestern (2x35)

* all matches will be played on the turf field.