MLAX heads to face Bellarmine on Saturday

Game Notes (PDF)

MILWAUKEE – The Marquette University men's lacrosse team hits the road to begin a season-long five game road swing on Saturday against Bellarmine at Owsley B. Frazier Stadium in Louisville, Kentucky.

Opening faceoff is slated for 11 a.m. Central time and the contest airs live on ESPN+ with play-by-play announcer Joey Lindstrom on the call. Live statistics are available on GoMarquette.com, courtesy of Bellarmine Athletics.

Tickets are available at the Frazier Stadium gate on Saturday for $6.

Following Saturday's game against the Knights, MU faces No. 10/11 Penn State on Saturday, March 16 in a neutral site matchup in the Philadelphia area at Springfield High School.

MARQUETTE (3-3, 0-0 BIG EAST)

The Golden Eagles opened the season with wins at Air Force and against Lindenwood and Detroit Mercy, but have lost their last three contests to then-No. 1 Notre Dame, then-No. 13/12 Michigan and Utah.
MU's veteran core has reached numerous statistical milestones early this season, including a new program ground ball record for defenseman Mason Woodward (235), career assist record for Jake Stegman (70), career goal mark for Bobby O'Grady (105) and the 100-point threshold for both O'Grady (118) and Stegman (111).
Stegman leads the Golden Eagles with 20 points on seven goals and a team-best 13 assists. O'Grady has a team-high 17 scores in 2024 and three man-up goals.
O'Grady became the program's all-time scoring leader with four goals against then-No. 13/12 Michigan on Feb. 24 to surpass Ryan McNamara's record of 102 in the process. O'Grady now has 105 career goals just 35 games into his career (it took McNamara 64 games to reach 102) along with 118 points, just six behind teammate Devon Cowan (124) for third all-time at MU.
Cowan made his return to the MU lineup against Michigan after missing the previous two games against Detroit Mercy and then-No. 1 Notre Dame due to injury. With Cowan's return to the attack unit, freshman Carsen Brandt slid into a midfield spot, while Stegman stayed up on attack alongside Cowan and O'Grady.
Long-stick midfielder David Lamarca also made his season debut against the Wolverines and started his first game of the season on close defense against Utah.
Woodward is a member of the Tewaaraton Award Watch List and a consensus preseason All-America selection, with recognition from USILA, Inside Lacrosse and USA Lacrosse Magazine.
In total, the Golden Eagles return 94 percent of their offensive production this season from the highest-scoring team (13.29 goals per game) in program history.

BELLARMINE (3-3, 0-0 ASUN)

The Knights sit at .500 this season after wins over Marist, 11-10, and Hampton, 23-7, in their last two games. BU also owns a 13-9 win at St. Bonaventure and close losses to Canisius, 8-7, and Ohio State, 10-6.
BU midfielder Benny O'Rourk has scored in 30 consecutive games and is tied for second on the squad with Kyle Playsted at 11 goals this season. Freshman John Alie has posted a team-best 16 goals and 22 points, while scoring a pair of game winners.
Alie scored the winner against Marist last weekend to break a 10-10 tie, but it was Christian DellaRocco who led the Knights with four first half goals.
Goalie JC Higginbotham posted 19 saves for BU against Marist to pass Team Canada goalie Dillon Ward for the program career saves record. Higginbotham is 10th nationally in save percentage (.573) and 11th in saves per game (13.67).
The Knights are led by fifth-year head coach Andrew Whitley, who led the squad to a program-record 11 wins in 2023.

HISTORY WITH THE KNIGHTS

Marquette leads the all-time series with Bellarmine, 5-4.
Five of the nine previous games have been decided by just one goal and three have gone to overtime.
MU had won the previous three meetings before an 11-10 BU win last season at Valley Fields. Marquette's Cowan and Luke Blanc each posted hat tricks, while O'Rourk scored a game-high four goals.
The last meeting at Frazier Stadium was a 9-8 triple overtime MU win in the 2022 season opener. O'Grady scored four goals in his NCAA debut, including the winner with 2:55 to play in the third extra frame.
MU is 2-1 against Bellarmine in Louisville.

MU LOADED WITH EXPERIENCE

Marquette returns 10 graduate students in addition to 14 other seniors looking to get MU back to the NCAA tournament for the first time since consecutive appearances in 2016-17.
Three-time USILA All-American Mason Woodward is back for a fifth year, as are fellow captains Devon Cowan, Jake Stegman, Noah Verlinde and Luke Williams. Cowan, Stegman and Williams all made late decisions last spring to return for 2024.
Stegman leads the MU contingent entering this season with 46 career games played, while Woodward, Max Kruszeski, Verlinde and Cowan have each played over 40 games at MU. Faceoff specialist Grant Evans played 54 games over four seasons at NCAA Division III Grove City College (2019-22) and 12 last year for Marquette.

MU HAS VETERAN OFFENSIVE PIECES

Cowan and Stegman return alongside junior scoring dynamo Bobby O'Grady to lead an offense that ranked as the highest scoring in program history last spring with 13.29 goals per contest and brings back 94 percent of its point production.
O'Grady (104 career goals) and Cowan (94) are first and third, respectively, in MU career history. O'Grady broke Ryan McNamara's career record of 102 goals on Feb. 24 against then-No. 13/12 Michigan in Naples, Florida.
Stegman has 70 career assists and passed Conor Gately's MU record of 63 in the win over Detroit Mercy on Feb. 13.
Stegman also set the MU single-game record for assists with six in the Feb. 13 win over Detroit Mercy.
Stegman set a single-season program record with 32 assists in 2023 (12 more than the previous record set by Gately in 2013). The Naperville, Illinois native switched to a spot in MU's first midfield unit during league play and responded with his first all-conference season.

O'GRADY VAULTS UP MU RECORD BOOK

Bobby O'Grady burst onto the scene as the 2022 BIG EAST Freshman of the Year and has scored at an elite pace in his first two seasons at Marquette (3.02 goals per game).
Through just 35 games of his NCAA career, he's the all-time program leader in goals (105) and man-up scores (22). He broke Ryan McNamara's program goal record of 102 against then-No. 13/12 Michigan on Feb. 24.
He turned in a record-setting season as a true freshman in 2022, setting new program records for goals (45) and man-up scores (13). He also recorded just the fourth 50-point season at Marquette and tied a BIG EAST record with eight goals at St. John's on April 9, 2022.

DEEP AT THE DOT

Marquette's faceoff unit got a much-needed boost with the return of graduate faceoff specialists Luke Williams, a 2022 All-BIG EAST selection, and Grant Evans for their final seasons of eligibility.
Two of the four seasons that Marquette has faced-off at above a 50-percent clip have come in the last two campaigns.
Williams enters the game against Bellarmine with the 13th-best faceoff winning percentage in NCAA Division I (.628) and MU's team leader with 6.00 ground balls per game. He is also among the top six student-athletes in MU history in both ground balls and faceoff win percentage.
Redshirt freshman Adam Slager from Stoughton, Wisconsin made an impressive career debut in MU's season-opening win at Air Force. In the first playing time of his career, Slager won 8-of-10 draws and picked up four ground balls.
Evans saw his first significant playing time at MU on March 11, 2023 with eight wins on 12 draws against Bellarmine. He followed that up with a 10-of-13 performance with six ground balls and a goal in the victory over then-No. 5 Penn State.
Evans posted a season-long win percentage of .542 (77-of-142) last season and was second on the squad with 47 ground balls.
Evans was a graduate transfer last year from NCAA Division III Grove City College, where he was the NCAA statistical champion in faceoff win percentage (.795) as a freshman in 2019.

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