PLUS: Four Golden Eagles were named to the preseason all-conference team!
As was probably expected, YOUR Marquette Golden Eagles volleyball team was picked to finish second in the Big East when the league released the results of the preseason coaches poll on Tuesday afternoon. While the Golden Eagles have won three straight regular season titles, all three have been shared with Creighton, and picking the Bluejays, who have a #12 ranking in the preseason AVCA top 25 poll, is a pretty obvious choice for the poll in the league.
Creighton snagged all 10 possible first place votes, as coaches can not vote for their team or their players. Marquette picked up the first place vote from CU’s Kirsten Bernthal Booth, and some quick math — 9 second place votes x 9 points per vote — means that the Golden Eagles were picked to finish second on every other ballot. There is a bit of a squishy middle to the poll past St. John’s in third and DePaul in fourth. Six teams will qualify for the Big East tournament in November, and there is just 25 poll points separating #5 Butler from #9 Connecticut. If the actual league standings shake out that way as the season rolls along, the final weekend of the season could have big playoff implications and a tiebreaker or two may come into play.
If you read my preseason award picks, you’re not surprised to see the coaches pick Creighton’s Norah Sis as the preseason Player of the Year in the Big East. I went with Kendra Wait because she was the postseason winner last season, but I made the point that Wait being the pick miiiiiiight have had something to do with Sis missing 40 sets of action a year ago. Her numbers were right what you’d expect for a POY, but she just missed a bunch of time. Sis was the preseason POY a year ago, so no surprise that the coaches went back to her again in 2024.
Onwards to the preseason All-Big East team, and as expected, the league released a team with 12 players on it. In a sport where six women play at a time, and because of libero rules, you can reasonably say that seven are listed as your starters. What are we doing here? The coaches had unanimous support for five of the 12, so why not go ahead and do a 7 & 7 situation with a First Team and a Second Team? It’s not like that would be hurting anyone’s feelings more than putting asterisks on the unanimous choices says “these are the actual best players in the league.”
ANYWAY
Four of the 12 all-conference honorees — yes, a full third of the list, more than any other team — come from Marquette. Only one of the four is unanimous, and that’s Aubrey Hamilton. Let’s turn to the MU press release for the writeup here:
Hamilton is a two-time AVCA All-Region selection who led the Golden Eagles last season with 434 kills for an average of 3.77 per frame while hitting .274 (434-123-1,136). The unanimous all-league selection hit .312 in conference play and her 3.82 kills and 4.43 points per set average each ranked second among BIG EAST peers.
The native of Hartland, Wisconsin earned six BIG EAST weekly honors in 2023 and landed her 1,000th career kill against then-No. 1 Wisconsin at Fiserv Forum. Hamilton hit .346 in the NCAA First Round against EIU and posted a team-best 22 kills with a pair of blocks and eight digs against Purdue in the second round.
Hamilton is joined on the preseason all-conference team by Yadhira Anchante, Hattie Bray, and Carsen Murray, which means that MU’s top hitter, both starting middle blockers, and the starting setter are all on the list. All four women are — obviously — returning from a highly successful MU team last year, and all four earned all-conference honors one way or another in each of the past two seasons.
Here’s what MU wrote up for Anchante:
Anchante was the 2022 BIG EAST Setter of the Year and earned her second postseason all-conference honor last year. She averaged 9.77 assists per set in BIG EAST play and recorded 14 double-doubles overall.
That’s a little bit on the short side because Anchante missed five matches and 16 sets a year ago due to an issue with appendicitis. Thus, it was a little bit of a down season from her after being named the Setter of the Year in 2022. A return to form is very much in the cards for Anchante in 2024.
And Bray:
Bray, who was also an AVCA All-Region selection in 2023, hit .272 as a redshirt sophomore with 250 kills (2.19 per set) and 98 blocks (0.83 per set). She hit .417 (7-2-12) in the NCAA First Round against Eastern Illinois and posted a monster hitting mark of .615 in the second round against Purdue with 16 kills on 26 errorless swings.
The native of Hancock, Wisconsin ranked sixth in BIG EAST play in blocks per set (0.98) and was 16th in hitting percentage.
And last but only in alphabetical order, Murray:
Murray led the BIG EAST with a hitting percentage of .420 (105-21-200) in league play while ranking fourth in blocks per set with 1.00 per frame (58 total). Murray was a unanimous all-league pick in 2022 and is Marquette’s all-time leader in hitting percentage (.379 on 1,206 total attempts).
Marquette will host Northwestern for a preseason scrimmage/exhibition match on Friday evening as well as hold an open practice/scrimmage on Sunday (both are free admission at the McGuire Center) before they open the regular season on August 30th with. That one will be a road contest against Eastern Illinois, and the Golden Eagles will kick off the home slate of the 2024 season with three straight matches against teams earning preseason top 25 votes, starting with #5 Stanford and followed up two days later with #13 Kansas. The Golden Eagles themselves are ranked #24 in the AVCA preseason poll.
You can check out the Big East’s press release on the preseason poll right here.