The Golden Eagles head to Bowling Green for a pair of critical contests against Western Kentucky & #24 Dayton
I don’t want to create undue burden and expectations here, but hooooooooooooboy is this a pivotal weekend for Marquette volleyball.
Last year, Marquette lost seven non-conference matches against teams that were ranked at the time. They didn’t take any other losses in non-conference action, and so they didn’t take any RPI whacks when it came around to NCAA tournament selection time. Heck, it seems like the selection committee ended up rewarding them, as they ended up with a #6 regional seed in the field of 64. That means that, even with the losses, the committee still had Marquette as a top 24 team on the day the bracket was announced.
This year, just four matches in, things are different. Losing to #5 Stanford and #13 Kansas within days of each other and at home was not a picnic. Not going to try and convince anyone otherwise, but at least that looked like the equivalent of losing a Sweet 16 game. Marquette has only ever played in two of those in program history, and they’ve lost them both. Not a problem. Not fun, but not a problem.
Losing to Western Michigan this past Sunday…… that’s A Problem. It’s not a big one, not with WMU earning preseason top 25 votes and picked to win the MAC this year. That’s a very good volleyball team, and as long as they hold up their end of the deal the rest of the way, there won’t be that much of a penalty for the Golden Eagles.
But it was a loss to an unranked opponent. That’s something that MU didn’t do last year while (slightly surprisingly) sailing to a #6 seed. On Friday morning, Marquette will play another unranked opponent, but this time the team in question is earning top 25 votes. Arguably, a slightly better foe than Western Michigan. 25 hours later, they’ll play the team that’s now holding the #24 ranking that MU had last week. Beating a ranked team would do Marquette a world of good in terms of building an at-large resume.
That’s the right now importance of what’s going on.
The big picture makes these matches even more important. These are matches against quality opponents that MU can beat, or at least think that they don’t need to play perfect volleyball to beat. Next week: at #8 Wisconsin. Next weekend: at #1 Pitt. In between the two: Undefeated East Carolina in Pittsburgh. Challenges, to varying degrees. Might not be great opportunities for wins, we’ll see what ECU turns into in the next 7 days.
But the point is that Big East play starts after that. Yes, Marquette has non-con dates with Milwaukee and Princeton scattered amongst their league matches. But the Panthers are 3-4 and Princeton already lost in a sweep to Villanova, a Big East team that certainly seems like they shouldn’t be on MU’s level this season.
After this weekend, Marquette’s chances of stacking up quality wins are getting very very small. They have to take advantage of the situation in front of them because their non-conference record already looks a little bit worse than it did last year.
Match #5: at RV Western Kentucky Hilltoppers (4-3)
Date: Friday, September 13, 2024
Time: 11am Central
Location: E.A. Diddle Arena, Bowling Green, Kentucky
Streaming: ESPN+
Live Stats: Sidearm Stats
Twitter Updates: @MarquetteVB
Bluesky Updates: @AnonymousEagle
Marquette is 2-2 all time against Western Kentucky. WKU won the first meeting in 2004, Marquette won the next two, including the 2011 match in the first round of the NCAA tournament. That one was was 1) MU’s first ever NCAA tournament match and 2) MU’s first ever win over a ranked team. The Hilltoppers beat Marquette in four sets last season in a neutral site match hosted by Dayton.
Part of Western Kentucky’s problems this season on their way to a 4-3 start was scheduling two ranked opponents. They took a 3-1 loss to then-#9 Kentucky in Lexington, and then just this past Tuesday night, WKU lost to #16 Tennessee at home in five sets. There’s a certain amount of “yeah, well, that’s life” in those losses, but the same can not be said for taking a 3-1 loss to a Michigan State team that was picked to finish 12th in the 18 team Big Ten. Makes you ask questions about whether or not Western Kentucky deserved to be ever so slightly outside the preseason top 25, y’know?
With that said, Western Kentucky was the heavy favorite to win Conference USA this year, picking up eight of the 10 first place votes in the preseason poll. They put three players on the preseason all-conference team, including Preseason Player of the Year Kaylee Cox. The 6’3” outside hitter from Texas is currently leading WKU in hitting at 3.04 kills per set. She’s their only attacker with more than 180 swings to this point of the year, although we should note that Cox is only hitting .231. Callie Bauer, one of the other two preseason honorees, handles the setting here to the tune of just over 10 assists per set.
Junior Abby Schaefer leads the way in the digs column at 2.93 per set. Cox and Bauer join Schaefer in averaging at least two digs per set, so they’re staying very busy. Marquette is going to have to watch out for Izzy Van De Wiele at the net. The 6’5” sophomore from Iowa is averaging more than a block and a half per set so far this year.
Match #6: vs #24 Dayton Flyers (5-0)
Date: Saturday, September 14, 2024
Time: 12:30pm Central
Location: E.A. Diddle Arena, Bowling Green, Kentucky
Streaming: Nope. Apparently WKU doesn’t love us that much.
Live Stats: Sidearm Stats
Twitter Updates: @MarquetteVB
Bluesky Updates: @AnonymousEagle
Marquette is 9-22 all time against Dayton, although that record goes to 8-18 if you keep it to since MU moved to Division 1. Last year’s MU victory in Ohio was the first regular season meeting since 2015 with the two sides splitting a pair of NCAA tournament meetings in 2019 and 2021.
Dayton is the unanimous favorite to win the Atlantic 10 this season. That’s the kind of thing that happens when you go 32-3 a year ago and get to the second round of the NCAA tournament, I suppose. The only wild thing about it is that the Flyers did actually earn all 10 first place votes in that poll. The press release doesn’t exactly say that the coaches do the voting, but if they do, then UD head coach Tim Horsmon voted for his own team. No shade, just saying it’s a thing that Big East coaches aren’t even allowed to do.
A 5-0 start to the 2024 campaign is obviously a good thing, but Dayton does have a certain amount of “what if” attached to their season. They had a match with an Ohio State team that was receiving top 25 votes at the time ruled a no contest because humidity in Dayton’s facility was creating an unsafe playing situation. That match was tied at one set a piece in front of over 4,000 Dayton fans when it was thrown out, so we have to say there’s definitely a chance that the ranked Flyers could have been upset by the Buckeyes in that one by the end.
Other than that, Dayton doesn’t really have all that much on their slate right now that’s particularly impressive, although they did beat Northern Iowa in five sets and the Panthers are a reliably talented squad. That lends a bunch of importance to this weekend, as they get to host undefeated but not earning top 25 votes Illinois and Western Kentucky in addition to this match against the Golden Eagles. Big spot for them, as it is for all three of their opponents. ASIDE: Why is Marquette not playing Illinois as part of this event? Seems like if you agree to go be part of the event, you have to play everyone else in the event, yeah?
Marquette’s path to victory is taking Lexie Almodovar out of the equation. The 5’8” redshirt senior has been white hot to start the season, racking up over 4.1 kills per set and hitting over .300 while leading the Flyers in total attacks. However, if Marquette can make life difficult for her and send the UD offense in a different direction, Taylor Russell is struggling. The 6’2” redshirt junior is #2 on the team in total attacks behind Almodovar, but she’s fourth in kills per set because she’s only hitting .209. Letting Russell blast shots all over the gym seems like a pretty solid idea right now.
Alyssa Miller is handing out assists at a high level, more than 11 per set right now. On top of that, she’s pretty much guaranteed to drop at least one service ace on you per match, as Miller is averaging 0.35 per set this season. Karissa Kaminski is anchoring the defense with a team high 3.94 digs per set, while Liana Sarkissian gets to 1.20 blocks per set. Dayton’s got some intriguing blockers behind Sarkissian on the stat sheet, but they’ve only played in 10 of UD’s 17 sets this season.