With Marquette’s defense struggling, Markus Roeders called on junior defender/midfielder Leah Celarek to give his back line some relief. Celarek quickly sprinted across the bench, taking off her warm-up and throwing on one of Marquette’s gold-and-white home kits before heading to the scorers’ area.
There was one problem — it was the wrong kit. Instead of her no. 25 jersey, she mistakenly grabbed fellow defender Mary Kate Simon’s no. 5 jersey. She donned Simon’s no. 5 jersey and her own no. 25 shorts for the final 14 minutes of the first half.
Yet Celarek’s mindless mistake served as a larger, more gloomy metaphor for Marquette’s entire night Thursday against Villanova — a 4-1 loss to the team ranked four spots behind Marquette in the BIG EAST preseason poll.