There was a shining glimmer of a chance of an upset before Sarah Franklin snuffed it out.
At the end of the night, it turns out there wasn’t a damn thing that Marquette volleyball was going to be able to do to stop Sarah Franklin.
The Wisconsin outside hitter tore Marquette apart on Tuesday in front of over 15,000 people in the Kohl Center, recording 33 kills on frankly absurd .517 hitting across 60 attacks, and that’s how you get #7 Wisconsin rallying from down 0-1 to beat the Golden Eagles 3-1.
I said it in the preview, there’s a way to make Franklin inefficient. The 2023 AVCA National Player of the Year had managed to post a hitting percentage over .230 just once in Wisconsin’s first six matches of the season. Yes, it was probably largely because the Badgers played three top 10 teams to open the season, but that’s still two other opponents that kept her under that number. It was possible to do….. and Marquette came nowhere close.
Marquette did win the first set, and they did get there in pretty impressive fashion against the #7 team in the country. After MU took a 15-11 lead midway through the frame, Wisconsin wiped that lead away and pushed themselves out in front, 19-17, on a kill from Anna Smrek. Another strike from Smrek moved the thing along to 21-19, and it was looking like it was going to be a bummer that Marquette came up short in the first frame. However, the Golden Eagles took six of the final seven points of the set, all on kills, with UW’s only point coming on a MU misfire, and that’s how you got that 25-22 opener.
To drive the point home about what happened in this match: Franklin had five kills in the first set, and none after she tied it at 17. To be clear: Five kills in a set is a lot and is very good, it’s great to be honest. As I look at it on Wednesday morning, TCU’s Melanie Parra is leading the country at 5.64 per set.
28 kills in the next three sets is averaging 9.33 per set.
That’s what Sarah Franklin did to Marquette.
The second set slipped away from Marquette late, after they had pulled within one at 15-14. The next three Wisconsin points were all — you guessed it — kills by Franklin, and they pulled away for the 25-20 win. The third set was going along perfectly nicely, with Marquette up 14-12 on a kill by Hattie Bray. Cue a 10-0 run with five kills by Franklin — she crammed a “one of the best in the country” set into this run alone, what are you supposed to do with that? — and it’s 22-14, and this set is over. Wisconsin tipped the fourth set with a 8-1 run to push into the middle section and take a 14-10 lead with the last two of the burst coming from kills by Franklin. You could argue that MU made it a little interesting at the end, fending off match point twice, but that still gave Wisconsin a 25-22 win in the frame when, yep, Sarah Franklin took the final swing of the contest.
Sheesh.
A .632 hitting night for Carsen Murray went to waste, but she did lead MU in kills with 12. Yadhira Anchante got to a double-double on 39 assists and a team high 14 digs. Sarah Franklin’s performance is definitely what determined the outcome here, but the fact of the matter is that you’re not beating a top 10 team on the road when Aubrey Hamilton hits .064 on 47 swings and both Jenna Reitsma and Hattie Bray are sub-.200 on less than 25 attacks in four sets.
Up Next: Marquette will take their 3-4 record on the season out on the road this weekend for two more contests before Big East play starts. They’ll face East Carolina in a neutral site match on Saturday afternoon before tangling with host Pittsburgh on Sunday afternoon. The Pirates are 7-1 on the year after losing at South Carolina on Tuesday night and they’ll play Pitt on Friday night. The Panthers are 6-0 on the year and currently ranked #1 in the country. They’ll be holding that rank no matter what on Sunday, but they do have to host #3 Penn State on Wednesday night.