NIXON: “You can just feel her energy and it spreads...”

Continued from page 16 football for our junior football program,” Nevin said. “She walked right up to me and said ‘Hi, I’m Brynna Nixon and I’m going to play for you when I get to Fife.’ I’ll never forget that.”

Then during her junior year, Nixon made history.

In a playoff game, Nixon became the first woman to throw a touchdown pass in Washington state history, with a 25-yard pass that landed in the breadbasket of the receiver’s hands.

“I’m still wrapping my head around it even though it happened four years ago,” Nixon said. “Part of me feels like a trailblazer, but at the same time, I also did the same thing that every other guy has done.”

Nixon earned the starting spot her final season, leading the Trojans to a 4-2 record.

“She ran our offense better than any of the other guys, she been in it so long and done it so well, she was so meticulous and she’s such a competitor,” Nevin said. “Her senior year we had a younger quarterback and so it was a competition and she won.”

Despite that success, it wasn’t all positives for the senior signal caller.

“Once they said I couldn’t do it, I was like yeah, I’m not quitting (and) I’m proving you wrong,” Nixon said.

Sophomore midfielder Lorelai VanGuilder knows what it was like to play a sport with guys as she played hockey at Hill-Murray High School in Maplewood, Minnesota.

“Being a woman in sports is hard enough as it is and playing with guys is tough mentally and physically,” VanGuilder said. “She took it like a boss because she is one, she’s awesome.” over into her college career.

“She lives with integrity, and she does what she says she’s going to do,” Rizzo said. “She’s definitely taken on that ‘I’ll prove you wrong’ type of attitude and make a lot of changes in a positive direction.”

Rizzo said that this behavior has started to spread to the rest of the team.

“You can just feel her energy and it spreads (to) everybody, from our defense all the way down to the attackers,” Rizzo said. “She is just so contagious with her love and her energy.”

After proving everybody wrong up to this point, Nixon said she wants to prove a few more people wrong with the Golden Eagles.

“A lot of teams count us out because we have Denver and UConn in our conference, so they take up a lot of the spotlight in the Big East,” Nixon said. “I think we have a great team this year and we can go really far, so it’s proving people wrong in an aspect of counting us out a lot of the times (and) I like doing that.”

“The biggest obstacle I had was I was a girl playing football; Other teams I would play against would take cheap shots at me to try and get me out of the game,” Nixon said. “It was that kind of stuff that made it the hardest because if I was a guy this wouldn’t be happening.”

While going through those challenges, Nixon fell back on one aspect she has carried her all this way.

While playing for the Trojans football team in the fall, Nixon would also play lacrosse in the spring starting in fourth grade.

Once she reached high school, Nixon led Fife to three league titles across her four years (2018, 2019, 2021). After finishing as the all-time career save percentage leader, Nixon came to Marquette heading into the 20212022 school year.

Assistant coach Jill Rizzo said she has seen that same attitude Nixon had in high school carry

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All-Big East First Team (unanimous selection) while both Oso Ighodaro and Kam Jones were tabbed All-Big East Second Team. David Joplin earned the Big East Sixth Man Award.

Head coach Shaka Smart and Kolek are expected to win Big East coach and player of the year honors respectively as well but that won’t be announced until Wednesday.

But again something is still missing in this: a win in March.

Even though the Golden Eagles are the No. 1 seed in the Big East Tournament this week at Madison Square Garden, they aren’t the favorites to earn the conference’s automatic bid for the big dance. DraftKings Sportsbook currently lists UConn as the favorites at +190 with Marquette and Creighton tied for second at +320.

Don’t get me wrong, Marquette is talented and has exceeded expectations all season, but the team isn’t talented enough to win the Big East Tournament.

At least not this year. And here’s why.

Assuming Marquette takes care of business on Thursday in the quarterfinals against either

St. John’s or Butler and UConn takes care of its own business against Providence, the Golden Eagles will match up with the Huskies in Friday’s semifinals.

That’s a matchup that is not favorable whatsoever for Marquette on paper.

All you need to know is how the Feb. 7 game between both teams went.

UConn looked like the team that began the season 14-0 in the first half that night — especially on the glass, finishing with a 4019 rebounding edge.

But if Providence takes down UConn Thursday, I could see Marquette playing under the lights in the World’s Most Famous Arena come Saturday night.

Regardless of what happens at Madison Square Garden, the Golden Eagles will make their second March Madness appearance under Smart.

Currently, Marquette is listed as a No. 3 seed in ESPN Bracketologist Joe Lunardi’s March 5 bracket projection. That would be the highest NCAA seed for the Golden Eagles since the 2012-13 season.

If you asked me at the end of January, I would have said the ceiling for the Golden Eagles would have been borderline

Final Four, a projection solely based on how their offense was humming and how they were playing at that point of the season.

But a month later, it is Sweet 16 or Elite 8. Why the change?

First, Marquette has seen a decline in offense efficiency since the start of February as it has dropped to the No. 4 ranked offense on KenPom.com after sitting at No. 1 for weeks.

Secondly, since Feb. 1, Marquette ranks 38th overall in the country, 33rd in offense and 68th in defense according to T-Rank.

And then there is the inevitable Achilles heel that Marquette brings with itself: lack of size and height. For example, if Marquette has to play teams like Arizona, Kansas or Kentucky that have elite forwards, it won’t stand a chance.

But what do I know? Maybe Shaka Smart and the Golden Eagles will “Shaka the world” like Smart did in 2011 at VCU bringing the Rams to the Final Four. Time and matchups only will tell.