Johnny Torres’ crew was under-manned and under-prepared for a Big East road match — let alone one that went into not one, but two overtime periods — but they dug deep and capitalized on enough of their dangerous chances in the final third to come away with a 2-1 win over Marquette in their season-opener on Saturday night.
Junior midfielder Charles Auguste opened the scoring for Creighton early in the second half and redshirt sophomore defender Jake Ronneberg buried the game-winner into the back of the net in the 105th minute to hand the Golden Eagles (3-1-0) their first loss of the season. Starting in place of Big East preseason co-goalkeeper of the year Paul Kruse, who missed the match due to injury, true freshman Nathan Schnur came up with two saves in net for the Bluejays to earn his first collegiate win.
“I’m very, very proud of our guys for going the distance and doing what they did tonight,” Torres said. “We haven’t played on a full-sized pitch since roughly November 12th, and that was a training session. We were able to play on a full-sized pitch last Wednesday, but outside of that we haven’t had a competitive game since November 9th of 2019. So we knew that we wanted to come out and ease ourselves into the game, but still try to dictate the pace of it and try to keep control of the game through our possession.”
The Bluejays (1-0-0) were successful for the most part in that regard. Marquette finished the match with an 8-6 advantage in corner kicks, but Creighton doubled them up in total shots, 18-9, and produced a 9-4 edge in shots on goal. And while the Golden Eagles had more set pieces, it was the Bluejays who took better advantage of the area of the game as the generated both of their goals from playing balls short out of the corner to find feet instead of heads.
Freshman midfielder Owen O’Malley initiated the first goal out of a set piece from the right corner. He crossed one in and found Charles Auguste for a well-struck one-timer to give Creighton a 1-0 lead in the 51st minute. It was the third career goal for Auguste, who was playing for the first time since a foot injury ended his season prematurely near the end of September back in 2019.
“I thought [Auguste’s] work rate was exceptional, but his standards are very high,” Torres said. “Even though I thought he played ok today, he was not happy with his performance. He knows he can give more … that just tells you a little bit about his mindset. That’s a guy who has been out for over a year and a half, and yet he was disappointed after a victory that he had a hand in in regards to scoring.”
Marquette drew even at 1-1 in the 65th minute when junior forward Lukas Sunesson redirected a line drive off the foot of sophomore forward Christian Marquez. The second goal for Sunesson and the second assist for Marquez this season, and it set the stage for the heroics on Creighton’s side.
After getting outshot, 2-0, in the first 10-minute overtime period, the Bluejays were more aggressive in the second extra session. They struck gold with 5:25 to go when Nebraska-Omaha transfer Diego Gutierrez took another short corner and played a ball across the six-yard box and found Jake Ronneberg completely unmarked on the back post for the easy putaway to win the match.
“We were dangerous on set pieces tonight,” Torres said. “Obviously it was good execution by the guys, but [assistant coach Ian Sarachan] did a good job to draw up a couple of plays that the guys believed in, and they did a good job executing, in particular on that last corner kick. Diego Gutierrez did a great job to round his defender and play the ball across the six, and I believe it was Duncan McGuire who did a good job with what we call a “dummy play” where you act like you’re going to get the ball but you whiff on it on purpose to draw in a defender and allow the ball to continue on, and I think that’s how the ball found Ronneberg at the back post.”
After earning the always important three points in the Big East standings, the Bluejays will return to Omaha to take on Central Methodist in an exhibition match that is scheduled for a 3:00 p.m. kickoff on Wednesday, February 24 at the Omaha Sports Complex.
