It’s the first time in program history that the Golden Eagles have won their first NCAA tournament game in three straight seasons!
On Thursday evening in Utah, YOUR Marquette Golden Eagles volleyball team took to the floor to face their toughest non-Creighton opponent since Big East play started. That’s the nature of the game in the NCAA tournament, even with the Golden Eagles earning a #5 regional seed from the selection committee.
Even though Florida Gulf Coast, the double champion out of the ASUN is one of the eight best teams that MU has played all season, it was clear that the Golden Eagles were up to the challenge. Four different Marquette players hit at least .375 in the three set sweep of the Eagles, and both Aubrey Hamilton and Natalie Ring got into double digits in kills as Marquette knocked down FGCU on set scores of 25-20, 25-22, and 25-22.
It also clearly wasn’t a walk in the park for Marquette. I’ve seen better defensive outings for the Golden Eagles, as Florida Gulf Coast did manage to hit .270 for the match and they hit .290 or better in the first two sets. Two of FGCU’s top attackers on the day, Skylar English and Barbara Koehler, both hit over .400 with English leading the non-adjectived Eagles with 14 kills.
The first set didn’t turn towards Marquette until a 6-0 run late in the frame swung things from a 17-16 deficit to a 22-17 lead. While FGCU had their moments, this was not one of them, as MU gained points from a service error, an attack error, and a setting error, not to mention a solo block from Hattie Bray that goes in the books as an error by Shelby Kent. FGCU answered with three straight of their own, but MU did the same right back, again powered by Gulf Coast errors for the final two points of the set.
Marquette was able to get their arms around the second set a little faster as Carsen Murray went on a mini-run with a kill, a combo block with Hamilton, and another kill to put MU up 12-6. Florida Gulf Coast would find a way to halve that margin, but before long, Marquette was up seven on, yep, an attack error by Shelby Kent. It got a wee bit dicey at the end as MU let FGCU wander back in from a 23-16 lead allllll the way to 24-22 after set point was fended off three times, twice by MU miscues. But Aubrey Hamilton came through after Ryan Theis called a timeout, and that’s how we got to 2-0.
Scoring consecutive points is always the thing to do to build a lead, and Marquette did that six different times in the front half of the third set. That put them up 17-12, and it seemed very clear that the Golden Eagles knew that they had put their hand on the door and were getting ready to close it. Again it got twitchy late as FGCU pulled within one at 20-19 and then even tied it at 21 and again at 22. The lead was gone, but MU had forced Gulf Coast to fight just to get it to that point. Kabooms from Natalie Ring surrounding a kill from Hamilton meant three straight and a win and avoiding playing extra points.
It also meant that Marquette won 3-0 and advanced to the second round of the 2024 NCAA tournament. This marks the first time in program history that MU has won their first round match in three consecutive seasons. That’s a nice little building block, moving from “always in” to “always win at least one.”
How about some highlights, courtesy of GoMarquette.com and ESPN+?
That sends us along to the second round. The match will definitely be at 7pm Central time, and it’s definitely going to be at the Huntsman Center in Utah. The question is merely who’s going to be the opponent, as MU’s match was the first half of the doubleheader.
The answer to the question is #4 seeded Utah, as the Utes picked up the 3-0 sweep win over Charleston with sets of 25-21, 25-19, and 25-16. Given that Utah hit under .200 in two of the three sets, I’m going to guess (sorry, I didn’t watch, even if I did, I’m not that smart and I haven’t watched Utah a single time all year anyway) things did not come all that easy to the home team on this particular night.
Six different women took at least 11 swings for the Utes on Thursday night. Kamryn Gibadlo, a 6’1” sophomore outside hitter, was the recipient of the most attacks in the match firing away 39 times while recording a team high 11 kills….. but also a team high seven errors, which means she hit just .103 in the match. That’s decidedly an off night for her, as she averaged a team high 3.43 kills while hitting .268 this season.
Utah did get a pair of nice nights from their top two middle blockers. Emrie Satuala had eight kills on just 11 error free swings, while Allie Olsen went for six kills on 13 attempts. As maybe you’d expect for middles, they do have the top two hitting percentages on the team amongst regulars, and Olsen is hitting a kind of crazy .404 on the season. She averages less than two kills per set, so MU will have to be careful about not letting her start running wild. Much like Marquette, Utah does a pretty good job of spreading their offense around on average, as no one on the team has even gotten to 970 attacks this season. While that’s probably great news for the Utah coaching staff, it does make things a little bit harder for Marquette and also somewhat neutralizes a thing MU does well by seeing it mirrored back to them.
The Utes went 25-5 this season with a 14-4 record in the Big 12. That conference didn’t do a league tournament this season, so that means that Utah comes into Friday on an eight match wining streak, including beating in-state rival and then-#21 BYU back on November 8th. Friday will be Utah’s ninth match against an RPI top 20 opponent, so they’re definitely not going to be shy about the level of competitions. In fact, Utah’s only five losses this season all fall into that RPI top 20 window with four of them coming against top 15 opponents.
2024 NCAA Volleyball Tournament
Second Round
#4 Utah Utes (25-5, 14-4 Big 12) vs #5 Marquette Golden Eagles (24-8, 16-2 Big East)
Date: Friday, December 6, 2024
Time: 8pm Central
Location: Jon H. Huntsman Center, Salt Lake City, Utah
Streaming: ESPN+
Twitter Updates: @MarquetteVB
All Time Series: This is the first ever meeting between Marquette and Utah.