Villanova, Pa. - After falling to Providence at home on Saturday, Villanova answered back in a big way Thursday against Marquette to pick up their first BIG EAST win and even their conference record to 1-1.
 
Head Coach Chris McLain stated, "Today was a huge win for this program. We were 0-12 vs Marquette and we have never scored a goal against this program in the history of this series. When we won last year 4-1, our players were excited but I'm not even sure they believed they won the game in that fashion, almost if we got lucky. To do it again today, with another 3 goals, these kids now believe they can play with anyone."
 
McLain also added, "We played a terrible game vs Providence and our players knew it. They knew we didn't showcase our style and that had a lot more to do with how Providence imposed their style on us. To rebound today in the way we did it, makes us happy that we can learn from our losses."
 
The Wildcats were led by sophomore Ciara Terabasso who buried two goals in the game. Her first goal came off of a great pass from Sam DePinho who crossed it in near the goal line and Terabasso was able to find the back of the net which made the score 1-0. Her second goal which proved to be the game winner, came in the 73^rd minute when she received a pass from Niki Molina and shot it past the goalkeeper and a defender near the goal line which put the Cats up 3-0. These were her first two goals on the season
 
However, the Marquette Golden Eagles showed no quit and despite being down two, scored two goals in the final 15 minutes to make things interesting. Villanova was able to fight off Marquette and hold on for a 3-2 win.
 
McLain stated, "We still gave up two late goals. We are a good team but in order to be a great team we need to close games out. After a win, you would think our players were ecstatic. To be honest, they were frustrated that they let the rest of the players down with late goals. I love that hunger. We will use these next two days to insure we will be better at closing games out."
 
Bri Austin scored the Wildcats second goal off of a corner kick that found Kristin Barbour who then found Austin in the box in the 59^th minute to give the Wildcats their second goal of the game.
 
Villanova returns to action Sunday at Xavier for a 1:00 P.M. start. The game will be shown on BIG EAST Digital Network. Xavier sits at 1-1 in the BIG EAST after falling to Creighton to open conference play, and then defeating Providence in 2OT Thursday evening. They are led by junior Samantha Dewey who has a team high 13 points on the season already, with 3 of these coming against Providence. Goalie Toni Bizzarro has been impressive so far on the year with a 0.96 goals against average and a 0.836 save percentage.