CHICAGO – The Villanova Wildcats gave a valiant effort, but came up short in a 72-59 loss to No. 2 seed Marquette in the quarterfinal round of the BIG EAST Tournament. With the loss, Villanova falls to 18-13 on the season, while Marquette improves to 23-7 on the year.

Marquette led 43-33 with 2:47 to play in the third quarter, when the Wildcats finished the quarter on a 9-2 run to make it a 45-42 game after three. Senior forward Bridget Herlihy led the charge with five of the nine points on a three and a lay-up.

After the Golden Eagles scored the first four points of the fourth quarter, Villanova responded with five straight points on two free throws by senior forward Mary Gedaka and a three-ball from redshirt freshman Maddy Siegrist. The Siegrist triple made it a 49-47 game at the 6:44 mark.

On Marquette's next possession, Isabelle Spingola drained a triple to increase the Golden Eagle lead to 52-47, before Siegrist connected on another three and Villanova trailed 52-50 with 6:06 remaining. Spingola answered again on the next trip down the court when she made a second straight trifecta to put Marquette up 55-50.

The second Spingola three sparked a 7-2 Marquette spurt that helped the Golden Eagles open-up 62-52 advantage with 3:37 on the clock. Following two Gedaka free throws that cut the lead to 62-54, Marquette put the game away by scoring eight of the game's next 10 points to take a 70-56 advantage.

In the loss, Herlihy scored a career-high 22 points, while Siegrist finished with 21 points on 9-of-17 shooting. Gedaka registered her second double-double of the tournament with 13 points and 10 rebounds.

Marquette was paced by Selena Lott who had 17 points and Jordan King who added 14 points.

For the game, Villanova was 21-of-59 from the field (35.6%), 5-of-18 from three-point range (27.8%) and 12-of-13 from the foul line (92.3%), while Marquette shot 43.6 percent from the floor (24-of-55), 29.4 percent from long distance (5-of-17) and 79.2 percent from the charity stripe (19-of-24). The Golden Eagles owned a 44-28 advantage on the backboards. Villanova was charged with just seven turnovers.

NOTES: Villanova drops to 1-2 all-time as the seventh seed in the BIG EAST Tournament…Mary Gedaka moved past Laura Sweeney and into 6th place on Villanova's all-time scoring list with 1,555 points. Mary's mother, Lisa Angelotti, is fifth with 1,622 points….Mary Gedaka has scored double figures in 16 straight games…Tonight was Mary Gedaka's 82nd career double figure scoring game…Bridget Herlihy now has 14 double figure scoring games to her credit this season…Maddy Siegrist has reached double figures in 28 of the 31 games this season…Bridget Herlihy was credited with four blocked shots in tonight's game and now has 53 for the season.