The Golden Eagles did what they needed to do on Sunday at the McGuire Center.
The most interesting thing coming out of Sunday afternoon’s Marquette volleyball sweep of Butler is that the Golden Eagles didn’t have the Sport Court down on the McGuire Center floor. I would have figured that Saturday morning’s men’s basketball scrimmage left the set up crew more than enough time to get the floor down, but apparently not?
The second most interesting thing coming out of MU winning on sets of 25-18, 25-11, and 25-20 is that Natalie Ring ended up leading the Golden Eagles’s attack. She finished with a team high 31 swings, one more than Aubrey Hamilton, and her .323 hitting percentage means that Ring is the only Golden Eagle to get to 10 kills on the day. Ring got to 13, with Hamilton, MU’s kills leader by average, posting nine.
The third most interesting thing coming out Marquette moving back above .500 on the year at 7-6 as well as 3-1 in Big East contests is the fact that Jenna Reitsma took just one swing all match long. She played in all three sets and added an ace and five digs. I don’t think this tells us anything other than “Marquette decided to focus on giving Ring the ball all match long” because Ring’s the only player coming off the bench who had any true impact on the game. With that being the case, Ring’s attacks had to come from somewhere, and that somewhere was nearly entirely Reitsma.
As for the actual contents of the match, Marquette was up 13-6 midway through the first and then spent some time trading points with the Bulldogs. It was 21-15 after an Ella Foti solo block late, and MU answered a 3-0 run by BU with a 4-0 run of their own to end it. The second set had Marquette stacking points together early to build a lead that Butler wasn’t going to come back from, and then the Golden Eagles scored eight of the final nine points of the set to really drive that home.
The third set had the tinge of drama early. Butler took an 8-5 lead, but Marquette scored four straight to wipe that out, and it eventually sat at 13-12 Butler before three straight Foti aces helped drive a 5-0 Marquette burst. The Bulldogs got the next three, but another five in a row from the Golden Eagles made it 22-16. Did Butler get to 20 by the end? Yes. Did they really challenge Marquette? No, as their last two points were fending off match point.
How about some highlights, courtesy of FloSports and GoMarquette.com?
Up Next: Something of a tricky road trip for the Golden Eagles is waiting next weekend. On Friday evening, they’ll be in New York to face St. John’s, and then they have to turn around 42 hours later and tangle with Villanova just outside of Philadelphia. The travel adds a layer of complexity here — why not just play Seton Hall instead — but I’m really talking about just the Johnnies themselves in the tricky part. Marquette lost in five sets during their visit to New York last season, a loss that ultimately caused a tie for the Big East regular season title, and then they lost to St. John’s in the McGuire Center in the Big East tournament too.
The Red Storm are 13-5 overall and 2-2 in league play right now after 3-0 road losses to Xavier and DePaul this past weekend. The Wildcats are 11-4 with a perfect 4-0 record in Big East action, which leaves them tied with Creighton as the last two undefeated teams in the league. Is it mean for the Big East to keep scheduling Marquette and Creighton back-to-back for everyone in the league? Yeah, probably.