A coin toss might have worked better than the 110 minutes of soccer it took to unsuccessfully decide the winner of Sunday’s chilly afternoon showdown between Saint Louis University and Marquette University.
The rivalry has been a thorn in the side of the Billikens and the Golden Eagles since the teams are so evenly matched and play the same style of soccer, and the latest meeting was no exception. The Bills were forced to end their match against the No. 14 Marquette University in a scoreless tie after two back-and-forth periods of overtime.
“When we play Marquette, it’s always going to be a 0-0 or 1-0 game,” said coach Tim Champion. “I’m happy with how we did defensively. We won balls that we needed to, and we limited [Marquette], even though they had some quality chances to score.”
The matchup reflected how evenly matched the Bills and the Golden Eagles are. During the first half, both teams traded shots on goal but could not put the ball past either goalkeeper to break the game open and score.
SLU saw their best chance to score in the first half when Katie Zaegel blasted a shot from 15 yards out, only to watch the ball breeze past the near post just wide. The Billikens managed six shots on goal during the first half, but MU’s Ashley Koeing was solid in the net and came up with saves on all of the shots.
Meghann Burke steadied the Billiken backfield and got her hands on 10 saves throughout the game. Her best save came in the 53rd minute of the game when she was tested by Kate Gordon’s dangerous header from 10 yards back.
Moving to her right side to make the save, Burke reached around to her left side to grab the shot before it could enter the goal.
Jenny Kehl put Koeing on her toes during the second half when she fired a low shot to the far side of the net, but Koeing made the save and kept the Bills at bay.
The most dramatic moments of the game came in the final ticks of the second half when the Billikens pressured the MU defense and forced a corner kick with seven seconds remaining.
Jamie Perry scrambled to get the ball into play and launched the ball into the air with just a few seconds left to play and found a cloud of Billikens and Golden Eagles within scoring range, only to see the ball deflected out of play.
“We had four chances throughout the game we should have finished,” Champion said. “[Marquette] is a good team defensively, and when you play them, you don’t get many chances to score.”
At the end of the two halves, the game was still knotted at zero, plunging the teams into their first of two golden-goal overtimes. The first OT showed little spark from either team and mimicked the first half of the game, with both teams trading shots but coming up empty.
In the second overtime, Marquette launched several shots goalward in the opening minutes of the period, but every shot sailed wide or was snatched up by Burke or the Billiken defense, who combined for 13 saves throughout the match.
The second overtime was similar to the first with scoring chances from both teams but no successful shots. MU had more opportunities than the Bills, but SLU’s defense held strong as the game slowed to a close.
Marquette set a Hermann Stadium record of 20 shots by an opponent in a single match, while the Bills only mustered 11 shots of their own.
Friday afternoon, the Billikens had a solid showing at DePaul University, where they bumped along DePaul’s ragged field to a 4-0 shutout of the Blue Demons.
“DePaul is not a good place to play,” Champion said. “We had to keep our strikers up top most of the game and they really didn’t have any room to move (due to the size of DePaul’s field).”
Christie Cigno led the Billiken attack, heading in the first and the last goals of the game off a pass from Kehl and a corner kick taken by Perry.
In the 42nd minute, Perry sailed a pass to Kehl on the right side, where she netted the ball from 10 yards out.
The third goal of the outing came from Perry just six minutes after the start of the second half, when Cigno found Perry, who chipped the ball in just over the reach of DePaul’s goalkeeper.
Cigno and Perry tag-teamed the Blue Demon defense for the final strike of the match in the 83rd minute. Perry was challenged after a corner kick by DePaul’s Megan Pekala and got the ball to Cigno, who headed the ball in to end the game at 4-0.
