On one hand, I see the value of scheduling two teams that combined to go 5-17-12 a year ago as the opening two matches of the 2026 season for Marquette men’s soccer. The Golden Eagles have 15 newcomers on the roster this fall, and that means more than half the roster — 14 returning players! — is A New Guy In Milwaukee. Clearly head coach David Korn is going to have to do some work to get his roster to gel together, and starting off against teams that had their own problems last season is a solid way to try to get your squad off and running.
The problem there is that Marquette went 6-0-2 in non-conference play last season — 5-0-0 after a 1-0-2 start! before ending at 7-7-2. Did the Golden Eagles get a lot of value out of beating four sub-170 RPI teams when there’s only 213 Division 1 programs on top of a win over a non-Division 1 team? Certainly looks like those wins did absolutely nothing to get Marquette ready for five Big East matches against top 100 competition, right? MU’s lone league win last year? RPI #182 DePaul, right in line with those wins that really did not prepare the squad for what the rest of conference play was going to be like.
Again: I get why you do it. The problem is that David Korn kind of needs Year 3 in charge to look a lot better than Year 2, and we’re not going to get a real chance to figure out if Marquette has taken a step forward in this opening two-pack of matches. Odin forbid the worst happens and the Golden Eagles come out and clunk one (or both!) of these, because hooooooooooboy is that going to be an omen for the next 10 weeks.
Keep your eyes on two things in this opening set. First: Who is the focus on the offense? Marquette lost four of the eight guys who attempted at least 15 shots a year ago, so there’s going to have to be a reorganization of how everything works now. Mads Konrad Horgoien gets the spotlight at least to start the year, as he led Marquette in goals last season with six. Second: Who gets to be the starting goalie, or even better, who gets to be the primary goalie? Cameron Simpson returns after starting eight times last season, but there’s nothing about his 1.50 goals-against average or .700 save percentage that says “it’s his net to keep” here. Will Slawinski had a strong prep career for Brookfield East, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s ready for a Division 1 workload.
Match #1: vs Oakland Golden Grizzlies (0-0-0)
Date: Thursday, August 20, 2026
Time: 6pm Central
Location: Valley Fields, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Streaming:ESPN+
Live Stats:Stat Broadcast
Marquette is 2-6-0 all time against Oakland. The first meeting was a 3-1 Marquette win back in 1979, but the last five meetings have all been this century. However, each of the last four contests have gone to Oakland, including a 2-0 MU loss in Milwaukee in September 2004.
Full disclosure: I would have liked to wait for the Horizon League preseason poll before I wrote this section. However, since I’m publishing this on Monday, August 17 just to keep the Publish One Thing A Day run going and Why Not, It’s A Preview Of The First Game, I have to write it BEFORE the 17th…. And as of noon on August 15, the Horizon League didn’t get their preseason poll out by the end of business on Friday. It’s probably coming out on Monday or Tuesday, which is fine, relative to when the season actually starts…. but some of us are trying to work ahead and the HL is being very mean about that.
In any case, Oakland is coming off a 3-9-6 season a year ago where they went 0-5-3 in non-conference action. Part of that is on them for going 0-1-2 in a three match run against ranked opponents. All credit to the Grizzlies there, because they lost 1-0 to the #3 team in the country and tied 1-1 with the #12 team. They went 3-3-3 in Horizon League play and then lost 2-0 to Green Bay in the conference tournament quarterfinals to end their season. That was kind of a bummer because they had won 2-1 at Green Bay during the regular season.
Oakland only brings back two of the five guys who had four or more points a year ago. Andriy Bilous is the more notable of the pair, and he had three goals and a team high four assists last season. The other is Christopher Jean Leger, who had a pair of goals for four points. The Grizzlies also only bring back two of the field players who logged over 1,000 minutes last season. Bilous is one at 1,281, and thus the leading returning guy, while defender Noah Roka and his 1,097 minutes a year ago is the other. Roka had three assists in 2025, so that’s a notable help towards Oakland figuring out how to put the ball in the net this fall.
I presume that we’ll see Cole Thompson in net in this match. He had taken over control of the starting goalie job as the season went along and ultimately logged over 1,000 minutes back there. His save percentage could stand to be a little bit better at .738, but it would seem to be the defense in front of him that’s the real problem. Thompson was letting in 1.42 goals per 90 minutes a year ago, and since he was making four saves per match on average, that feels like he wasn’t quite 100% responsible for Oakland’s problems on that end of the field.
Match #2: vs Saint Mary’s Gaels (0-0-0)
Date: Sunday, August 23, 2026
Time: 1pm Central
Location: Valley Fields, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Streaming:ESPN+
Live Stats:Stat Broadcast
This is the first ever meeting between Marquette and Saint Mary’s.
As you could probably guess, Saint Mary’s is doing the very smart thing where they come to Wisconsin and play both UW-Madison and Marquette while they’re out this way from California. That’s quite the start to their season, particularly since the Gaels went 2-8-6 last season and they’re picked to finish eighth in the nine team West Coast Conference this year.
Saint Mary’s might be playing from a position of “well, maybe lots of change is good, actually.” They have lost their top three scorers from last season and two of the three guys who tied for fourth. The top three guys combined for nine of their 15 total goals on the year and three of their 12 assists as well. Cameron Kobey is their leading returning scorer, but that’s not saying much because he 1) had just one goal and one assist last season and 2) had just four shots on the year, so it’s not like he was a dependable part of their attack anyway.
Sam Bentley returns for his junior season after playing all but 20 minutes in net last season. The Gaels were getting outshot by nearly five shots a game last season, so it’s hard to really say that his 1.46 goals against average was his fault. Bentley’s .701 save percentage wasn’t lighting the world on fire, so there’s a non-zero chance that Marquette sees someone else in net by the time we get to this match. It’s possible that SMC’s opener against the Badgers ends up telling us something on the topic.
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