The Cardinal might be pretty good, as they pick up their third straight win over a ranked opponent.
At the end of the day, it wasn’t a bad performance by #24 Marquette volleyball, it just wasn’t enough to beat a top five ranked opponent. #5 Stanford came into the McGuire Center for MU’s home opener on Wednesday night, and beat the Golden Eagles 3-0 on sets of 25-18, 25-17, and 25-22. Marquette drops to 1-1 on the season, while the Cardinal are now 4-0.
The first set was tightly contested, right up until a solo block from Aubrey Hamilton put Marquette up 17-16. Stanford tightened up their game from there, recording three straight kills. After that, a pair of attacking errors by Sienna Ifill exacerbated Marquette’s problem, and a kill by Stanford’s Charity McDowell off of Carsen Murray’s block attempt made it six straight and put Marquette down five.
And the run wasn’t over. Stanford tacked on two more kills, and a service error by Hamilton handed them the first set.
Stanford grabbed a little bit of an edge early in the second set, but Marquette cut it down, pulling within one at 8-7. Seven of the next nine points went to the visitors, with three MU attack errors not helping the situation very much. That gave the Cardinal breathing room to just push along to the end, which came on a kill by Lizzy Andrew.
As you can tell from the score, things were close in the third. Whether Marquette ratcheted things up to try to fend off the sweep or Stanford started getting a bit of fatigue or just luck, neither side had more than a two point lead until Andrew posted the Cardinal’s 21st point on a kill to take a 21-18 lead. That was as wide as things got, but Stanford was able to just trade points with Marquette from there and lock up the sweep.
Marquette ended up hitting .255 in the match, which isn’t all that bad. It’s a little propped up by a .429 in the third, but that’s just balancing out a .105 in the second. MU’s defense was never able to slow down the Stanford attack, something you’re going to have to do to beat top five opponents, as the Cardinal hit at least .343 in every frame. Their best was the third, where they hit .421, and you have to figure that this thing would have gone at least four sets if MU had held them under .400 again.
Stanford had a trio of attackers get into double digits in kills, led by 14 from Ipar Kurt. Marquette had only Aubrey Hamilton getting there, leading the way for her team with 12. Yadhira Anchante had 30 assists to average 10 per set here, and she tied with Jenna Reitsma for the team high in digs with nine each. It’s not why Marquette lost here — the primary reason is “Stanford good,” but the Golden Eagles are going to need more than a kill on eight swings and a block from Carsen Murray or a kill on seven swings from Sienna Ifill.
Up Next: Things aren’t slowing down for Marquette, as they’ll be back in action on both Friday and Sunday. #13 Kansas comes to town for another ranked vs ranked tilt, and first serve is scheduled for 6pm Central. The Jayhawks will stick around in town after that to tangle with Western Michigan on Saturday, and then the Broncos will face Marquette on Sunday at 1pm Central. Kansas is 4-0 on the year after beating Wichita State on Wednesday night at home, while WMU is 2-1 after taking a 3-1 loss at home to Clemson on Sunday.