By: Adam Tortelli~Staff Writer~

The Xavier women’s soccer team continued to suffer this past weekend with a 1-0 loss to the University of Toledo Rockets. Excellent play from the defense and senior goalkeeper Katie Markesberry once again kept the Musketeers within arm’s reach of the team’s first tie or win, but the offense simply could not return the favor.

Xavier head coach, Woody Sherwood, went as far as to express his postgame frustrations to the press due to another unfortunate loss.
As challenging as the offensive deficiencies have been, Sunday’s nail-biter brought another long list of positives for the Musketeers as they look to take the next step.

For more than half of the game, Coach Sherwood’s girls kept the opposing rockets scoreless. It was not until the 65th minute that two Toledo players connected for what would ultimately be the game-winning goal.

The team illustrated the offense’s potential intensity by recording four more shots in the second half as they did in the first.
Sophomore forward Tori Doss kept the opposing defense on their heels with two shots on goal, bringing her team-leading total to seven this year.
Finally, another nice play from co-captain Katie Markesberry proved for a third time this year, that despite offensive woes, the team will always remain competitive while she is in goal. With another eight saves on Sunday, Markesberry moves now within 12 saves of second place on Xavier’s all-time saves list.

Regardless of record or success in postseason tournaments, this year’s team will go down in history as having one of the best goalkeepers to ever put on a Xavier uniform.

With Sunday’s result, Xavier women’s soccer sits at the bottom of the Big East at 0-3.
The team hopes to escaped the loss column quickly as they turned around and headed to Indianapolis to play a game against IUPUI in which Xavier won 2-0.