The Georgetown women’s soccer team (8-2-3, 3-0-1 Big East), will take on Marquette (7-5-2, 3-0-1 Big East) on Sunday at 1 p.m. on Shaw Field in a crucial matchup of two Big East powerhouses.

Marquette and Georgetown are tied with St. John’s (7-5-1, 3-0-1 Big East) and DePaul (11-0-2, 3-0-1 Big East) at the top of the Big East table with 10 points each after four conference games, and this game presents the winner with a chance to pull away.

The Hoyas are still smarting from last season’s crushing defeat in Milwaukee. They came into the match undefeated at 11-0-2 and lost 4-0, their only defeat of the 2013 regular season.

Sophomore midfielder Emily Morgan believes the team will be more prepared for the matchup than last year.

“I didn’t play in the game [last year], but it was pretty eye-opening for our team. And we’re definitely going to come out, knowing our result last year, very fired up. It’s the only game of our weekend and we’ve been spending the entire week preparing for it,” Morgan said.

As the two major recent powers in the conference, Georgetown and Marquette have been fiercely competitive in recent seasons.

“In 2012 we lost the Big East conference final to Marquette up in Hartford in the last minute of regulation,” Head Coach Dave Nolan said. “And since then, we’ve built up a good rivalry with them. And certainly with the changing of the guard in the conference, I don’t think anyone would ever argue that ourselves and Marquette … have been the two best programs.”

Though Marquette is having a down year by its standards, with five losses to its record already, the team will still pose problems for the Hoyas. Sophomore forward Liz Bartels, with 10 points this season, will challenge a Georgetown defense that underwent several changes before the start of this season.

“We’ve basically reconstructed our entire back line and our defensive center mid[fielder]s,” Morgan said. “So we’ve worked a lot on that transition between the back line and the defensive center mid[fielder]s, and I think we’ve gotten a lot better throughout the year with moving forward.”

Additionally, this year Nolan believes Marquette does not have the depth of previous years when they subbed in eight to 10 players per game, which may have limited squad rotation.

“The strength of their team is probably centered around team ethic, team work rate, team chemistry and just physical strength,” Nolan said. “In particular [senior midfielder] Mary Luba and [sophomore defensive midfielder] Morgan Proffitt are two very good central players for them. They play a different kind of system. They play a three-back, which we haven’t faced very much this year.”

But Georgetown’s team has changed significantly, too, and after scoring 58 goals in 21 matches last year for a 2.76 goals per game ratio, offense production has dipped this season to 2.15 goals per game (28 goals in 13 matches).

Nolan says that he must be realistic in his year-to-year expectations, especially due to more teams sitting back in defense this year to check the Hoya attack.

“I think our goals per game is around 2.25, which most teams would be doing cartwheels if they got,” he said. “I have to keep pinching myself to say that we’re not going to score 58 goals every year.”

While Sunday’s game is important in the context of a budding rivalry with Marquette, it is also vital to Georgetown’s hopes of winning the regular season Big East title.

“The top four, between us, Marquette, DePaul and St. John’s, it’s going to be who takes the most points off each other in that pot of four,” Nolan said. “And then it’ll probably be Villanova, Providence, Creighton and Butler fighting for the last two spots [in the Big East tournament]. … So when you play these games, they almost become six-pointers. Because if you lose them, not only do you lose the points, but you lose the opportunity to gain the points.”

Among that top four, Georgetown has already tied DePaul, and Marquette has tied St. John’s, leaving the top of the conference very tight.

Georgetown knows a win will go a long way toward winning the Big East, and Morgan hopes the team stays totally focused despite the season’s challenges.

“Together, I think we need to work on not becoming complacent,” Morgan said.“We need to keep ourselves motivated moving forward. It gets tough for any team going into the season, as you go through it. People get hurt, things change. But I think it’s important to keep our motivation going and keep the main goal in mind.”