The Golden Eagles never let Georgetown or Seton Hall even get to 20 points in any of the six sets across the weekend.
Marquette volleyball had two last home matches on the board for the 2024 season, and they came through with nary a scratch on them. On Friday, Marquette honored their seven seniors before sweeping Georgetown 25-17, 25-15, and 25-17. On Sunday, the Golden Eagles played their final match at the McGuire Center this year, and dealt with Seton Hall in a hurry on set scores of 25-18, 25-14, and 25-19.
The wins move Marquette to 20-7 overall this year and 14-2 in Big East play. Marquette has just one loss this season outside of the top 14 in the RPI, with both of their Big East losses coming against RPI #4 Creighton. Those wins by the Bluejays have arranged the Big East standings to the point where Creighton has now clinched at least a share of the regular season title with two matches left to go. Marquette’s 14-2 mark in the league leaves them four games ahead of both UConn and DePaul at 10-6 and thus guarantees that the Golden Eagles will skip ahead to the conference tournament semifinals over Thanksgiving week in Omaha.
There was never much of a doubt that Marquette was going to beat Georgetown on Friday. I spent the match watching the ball in play then looking at my iPad to see how the men’s basketball team was doing against Maryland. Ryan Theis’ Golden Eagles did their jobs so well that I was out of the McGuire Center and on my couch for the final 11 minutes of the basketball game even though the two events were scheduled to start at the same time. Marquette hit .380, Georgetown hit .149 and their hitting percentage got progressively worse set by set as the match went along.
Six different women posted at least five kills for the Golden Eagles as they needed just 48 of them to get to 75 and beat the Hoyas. Hattie Bray led the way with 11 kills on just 17 swings for a .529 hitting percentage on the night. MU spread out the defense as well, with five different women getting to five digs, led by 10 from Jenna Reitsma.
How about some highlights, courtesy of GoMarquette.com and FloSports?
Marquette might have been on a mission to slice through Seton Hall quickly on Sunday after the Golden Eagles got taken to five sets by the Pirates in South Orange earlier this season. MU hit .378 and .406 in the first two sets to firmly grab control of the match, including inducing six SHU errors in the second to send them to a 2-0 deficit while hitting .000 in that set.
The third frame was a little bit shakier for Marquette, as they trailed 10-7 in the early goings. A 7-1 run flipped it from 16-13 Pirates to 20-17 Marquette, and ultimately the Golden Eagles closed out the match on a 12-3 stretch. It wasn’t Seton Hall misfires that doomed them here, as Marquette scored eight kills in that run, including four from Natalie Ring for half her output on the day.
Hattie Bray had top honors here as well, putting up 14 kills and hitting an absolutely absurd .684. There’s not much you can do as a defense when someone is that dialed in. Aubrey Hamilton got to 12 kills on .440 hitting and that sounds like an absolute nightmare to deal with.
How about some highlights, courtesy of GoMarquette.com and FloSports?
Up Next: Marquette will wrap up the regular season next weekend with a pair of road matches. On Friday night, they’ll visit Xavier, and on their way back to Milwaukee, the Golden Eagles will stop in Chicago to take on DePaul. The Xavier match is set for 5pm Central on FloSports, while you have to be a Marquee Sports Network subscriber in Chicago in order to watch the DePaul match at Noon Central on Sunday.