A big opportunity waits for the Golden Eagles in their home opener.
And now, it gets started for realsies.
Marquette volleyball opened up the 2024 season with a relatively-up-until-the-very-end easy sweep of Eastern Illinois, a squad that’s coming off an NCAA tournament appearance a year ago. On Wednesday, business picks up.
Wednesday’s Marquette home opener is the first of four matches in the next six against teams currently ranked in the AVCA top 25. Three of those four are in the top 15 of the poll, and two are in the top 10. The other two matches? A Western Michigan team that was earning preseason top 25 votes and a Western Kentucky team that is currently the unofficial #27 team in the country.
If Marquette wants to show that they’re a great volleyball team, not just a very good one or even just a good one, they have to find a way to stack up wins — yes, plural — in the next six matches. Does that mean Wednesday’s contest against the #5 team in the country is a must win? No, of course not, it’s just a fantastic opportunity to make a gigantic statement and make the entire country stand up and take notice. It would also make it a lot easier to get multiple wins over the next six matches, purely by the math of “five more tries to get the second one.”
Can the Golden Eagles do it? That’s the big question. That’s the question that’s been sitting out in front of Marquette ever since last year’s non-conference schedule ended with seven losses to ranked foes. That’s the question that’s been sitting out in front of Marquette ever since the 2024 schedule was announced. We all know what the schedule looks like, and we all know what Marquette’s shortcomings were last year. Can they make this season look different?
A win over the Cardinal would definitely signal that this year will be very different.
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Match #2: vs #5 Stanford Cardinal (3-0)
Date: Wednesday, September 4, 2024
Time: 7pm Central
Location: Al McGuire Center, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Streaming: FloSports
Live Stats: Sidearm Stats
Twitter Updates: @MarquetteVB
Marquette is 0-2 all time against Stanford. The only previous meetings were a 3-0 sweep in 2005 at an event hosted by Colorado and a 3-1 match in 2010 in an event hosted by the Cardinal. Stanford was ranked #3 in the country both times, so hey, good news: this is the worst Stanford team that Marquette has ever faced.
I’m just going to say the thing, because it’s funny to say: Stanford was picked to finish second in the Atlantic Coast Conference this season. Three of the ACC’s coaches picked the Cardinal to win the league this year, but that was a lot less than the 13 that elected to back Pittsburgh as the top team. Stanford nearly ended up third behind Louisville, as the Cardinal picked up 268 points in the polling, while the Cardinals — that S is very important here — grabbed 265 points.
As you can see, Stanford is 3-0 on the year, but they’re not just any 3-0. Their opening sweep over UW-Milwaukee is nothing to write home about, but the Cardinal were at the fancy college volleyball event at Fiserv Forum over Labor Day weekend, and they came out of the Milwaukee Bucks’ home arena with two big wins. On Sunday, they fended off a strong push and a 2-1 deficit from then-#18 Minnesota, and on Monday, after the new AVCA poll came out, Stanford beat #6 Wisconsin, 3-1. The Cardinal won a close first set in extra points with the future MU opponent, lost the second, and then won the next two both by scores of 25-22. The point of the story is that Stanford already has two ranked wins on the year, which very much does reinforce that preseason top five ranking.
Elia Rubin is currently ruining lives for Stanford. It’s not that she’s averaging 4.42 kills per set through 12 frames, it’s that she’s hitting .327 to do it. The 6’1” junior from Santa Monica is Stanford’s top returning attacker from last season, and it certainly looks like she’s up to the task of replacing Kendall Kipp’s 4.11 kills/set in 2023. The Cardinal have three more players averaging at least two kills per set, and I’d wager to guess that 6’6” senior Sami Francis will give Marquette the most problems of those three. Not only is she averaging 2.5 kills per set right now, but she’s also hitting an absurd .429 on 57 attacks.
Kami Miner handles the setting duties, averaging nearly 10.5 assists per frame. She has missed three sets this season so far though, but it appears that all three were against Milwaukee. That seems an awful lot like “was being held out to protect her for the ranked opponents” but also possibly “let’s let the freshman play against a team we should very clearly beat.” Miner is also leading the team in digs right now at 3.22/set, barely beating out libero Elena Oglivie at 3.17. That might be a product of the new libero rules allowing two players to slide in and out at the position, but I haven’t watched Stanford’s matches to say for certain. The aforementioned Sami Francis is leading the Cardinal in blocks per set, but she’s only at 0.67 per frame right now. I suspect that has more to do with playing two highly regarded opponents in the last two matches than anything else. She was over a block per set a year ago, so don’t be surprised if she has a big match against the Golden Eagles.