The Golden Eagles drop to 1-3 on the season after losing a pair of weekend matches against a great and very good team.
The weekend started for #24 Marquette volleyball with a 25-21 set victory over #13 Kansas on Friday. It ended with a 25-22 set loss to unranked Western Michigan on Sunday that wasn’t as close as the numbers say it was, and that’s how the Golden Eagles took not quite identical 3-1 match losses to the Jayhawks and the Broncos. The losses drop Marquette to 1-3 on the season, and they will assuredly not be ranked when the new AVCA poll comes out on Monday.
I want to be clear about something: Losing to Western Michigan isn’t the instant problem it looks like for Marquette. The Broncos were earning preseason top 25 votes and are the preseason pick to win the MAC. They were 31-3 a year ago and won an NCAA tournament game. That’s a good volleyball team.
It’s also the first time that Marquette has lost to an unranked non-conference regular season opponent in a non-weirdo season since a 3-2 defeat against Wichita State in 2017. It’s the first time that Marquette has lost at home to an unranked non-conference regular season opponent since 2015…. which was also Wichita State, weirdly enough. Is the takeaway “don’t play teams that start with W?”
The point is: This is a match that Marquette doesn’t lose. Yes, against a very good team. No, it’s not going to hurt MU’s chances of getting into the NCAA tournament, not any more than just taking a loss will. It’s just that Marquette had a very rough non-conference slate last season, losing to seven ranked opponents, and you’d think that you would want to see them make improvements with mostly the same roster……. and losing to WMU is a step back, not a step forward.
But things did start well as Marquette hit .350 and held #13 Kansas to just .184 in the first set of the weekend. The Golden Eagles got out to a lead, held off a push by the Jayhawks, got up 22-18 late, withstood a few points, and then closed it out with three straight. The omen, such as it was, came in the form of Kansas not doing a particularly great job on reception, whether that was on serves or just attacks. KU’s players were scrambling around the court to put a clean second touch on the ball over and over again all set long.
That omen kicked in during the middle of the second set, as it was Marquette’s turn to start to struggle with reception. The Jayhawks started firing serves directly at Jenna Reitsma and she made a few bad plays in a row and that sent MU into a 17-10 hole. Combine that with a pair of lethal attacks from Toyosi Onabanjo down the stretch, and that’s 25-16 for the Jayhawks and a 1-1 tie.
Once Kansas got their train on the tracks in the second set, it was pretty much all over for Marquette. It seemed like KU was able to activate a counter for MU’s gameplan for the match, but the Golden Eagles didn’t have anything that worked as a counter to the Jayhawks’ original counter. The third set was pretty competitive, it’s just that Kansas had the advantage and was able to hold it all the way through to a 25-22 win. A potential problem for Marquette? Aubrey Hamilton didn’t record a kill in the third until MU’s 16th point…… and that was her first since making it 19-13 in the second set. Generally speaking, you’d like to see your top attacker take less time than that in between points. Yes, yes, volleyball rotations, back row attacking, I get it….. but that’s still not good.
Also not good: Kansas’ 8-1 run that sent the fourth set from 10-7 to 18-8. That’s where the match ended, even if it was really a Caroline Bien kill at 25-15.
Highlights, such as they are, courtesy of GoMarquette.com and FloSports:
It seems that Marquette’s biggest problem on Sunday was not being able to get the car in gear. The first set was tied at 20 before Western Michigan pulled away late, but the stats tell us a story: .304 hitting for the Broncos against just .188 for Marquette. Worse yet, that was MU’s second best hitting set of the four in the match.
WMU got out to an 11-5 lead early in the second and it looked like they were going to be able to just stand there with their arm out the rest of the way. Marquette got it together late to take five out of six points and pull within two, 22-20. Yadhira Anchante missed on the ensuing serve, and that opened the door for Mary Clare Brusek to record back-to-back kills to put the visitors up 2-0 on Marquette. That was MU’s best hitting set of the afternoon, as they got it to .218 thanks to that late burst.
The third set got tilted by a 5-0 run from the Golden Eagles capped by a setter kill from Anchante to put them up 14-8. That gave them the space to withstand a push from WMU that pulled the Broncos within one, and MU was able to respond with a 5-1 burst. Carsen Murray was big in that stretch, getting two kills and sharing a block with Aubrey Hamilton for the 22-17 lead. A solo block from Hamilton brought MU to the edge, and a service error from Western Michigan’s Elana Erickson gave Marquette life and a fourth set.
And then they promptly put themselves into Problem Town with a 10-3 WMU lead. Remember when I said the fourth set “wasn’t as close as the numbers say it was” back up at the top. Yeah, this is what I meant. Yes, Marquette cut it to two, 12-10. Western Michigan responded with four straight. A kill from Julia Marr moved the Broncos to match point at 24-18. Just to force extra points, Marquette was going to have to score six straight. See? Not as close as the numbers say, even though MU did score four in a row before Marr ended it.
Up Next: Nothing easy, that’s for sure.
Friday: at Western Kentucky, who is currently the unofficial #27 team in the country and hosting #17 Tennessee on Tuesday.
Saturday: #22 Dayton in WKU’s building.
Next Week Tuesday: at #6 Wisconsin in the 17,000 seat Kohl Center instead of the 7,000 seat Field House.
Marquette needs to find a way to not be 1-6.