The Golden Eagles go down to Bowling Green and beat a Western Kentucky team that was earning votes and #24 Dayton!
Marquette volleyball went into their weekend in Kentucky with a need for quality wins on the schedule. The Golden Eagles are coming out of the weekend with two quality wins, both in somewhat dramatic fashion.
On Friday morning — yes, morning, that’s when first serve was scheduled, Marquette overcame over 2,000 screaming schoolkids on Education Day as well as a 2-1 deficit to beat a Western Kentucky team that’s been hovering just outside the AVCA top 25 all season with set scores of 20-25, 27-25, 22-25, 25-22, and 15-10. They followed that up on Saturday afternoon — just barely, 12:30pm is after noon, by dropping the first set to #24 Dayton in extra points at 28-26 before taking the next three for a 3-1 sweep and their third win of the season. It’s the first time that Marquette has defeated a ranked non-conference opponent since defeating #13 Georgia Tech at the McGuire Center in the 2022 NCAA tournament and their first in the regular season since September 17, 2022, when they beat #25 Illinois at the Al as well.
Things did not start out well for Marquette on Friday. The Golden Eagles hit .391 against just .185 for Western Kentucky with WKU mascot Big Red doing the Hot To Go dance in the background….. but Marquette was down 10-5 early and never quite got it in gear to overcome that deficit. A double contact call on WKU’s Callie Bauer pulled MU within three at 21-18, but the next three points went to the Hilltoppers to move them to set point and it was just a matter of time for them to close it out.
The second set was maybe a bit more like everyone expected from two teams trying to prove they deserve to be ranked on Monday afternoon, very tight, very back and forth. Aubrey Hamilton grabbed control of the thing late, ripping off three straight kills to put Marquette up 21-19, then putting up another one for a side out, then getting two more kills from the back line while she was serving. 24-20 Marquette, nothing to do but wait for that set point……. and the Toppers took a 25-24 lead. Set point, WKU, and Marquette was in big trouble. Carsen Murray tied it up, Molly Berezowitz aced the Hilltoppers, and Ella Foti comboed with Hattie Bray to make it three straight and an extra points victory at 27-25. That was very close to disaster for Marquette, but they did dodge it, something that they had trouble with on occasion a year ago.
Western Kentucky started to pull away from Marquette in the middle of the third set, putting together a 9-3 stretch that doesn’t sound like much, but that’s how you turn 10-9 MU to 18-13 WKU. The Golden Eagles answered with a 7-2 stretch to tie it at 21 on a kill by Bray, but that was their last gasp there. Kaylee Cox went up for two of her match high 19 kills, and that’s a WKU win and a 2-1 lead for the home team.
The hitting percentages don’t tell the story in the fourth with Marquette going for .220 and holding Western Kentucky to .146, but this was MU’s set early and they kept the pressure on. Bray and Jenna Reitsma partnered on a block for a 9-3 lead, and WKU wouldn’t get closer than three the rest of the way. The Golden Eagles kept stacking at least two points together to pull away and that gave them the 23-17 lead they needed to withstand a late push to win 25-22 and force a fifth set.
MU took the advantage early in the tiebreaker with a 7-4 lead as Morgan Daugherty subbed into the match and immediately went up to crush a WKU overpass. WKU isn’t a bunch of goofs, so they responded with four straight to prompt the side change in the fifth set. Marquette took advantage of that timeout as well as a Kaylee Cox error to go on a run. Cox’s error sent Reitsma to serve and she put down two aces, and Daugherty got another kill coming out of a timeout as the Toppers tried to ice Reitsma for an 11-8 margin. All MU had to do at that point was not allow consecutive WKU points, so they did that, and a block that’s officially Carsen Murray and Aubrey Hamilton but really was more just Hamilton by herself locked up the come from behind five set win.
WKU did a good job covering up Hamilton, Reitsma, and Bray in this one, holding them all to less than .230 hitting, but Murray and Foti came through with big days to make up for it. 14 kills and .542 hitting for Carsen Murray, a team high 18 kills on .378 hitting for Foti, 55 assists from Yadhira Anchante to give her a double-double on 11 digs, and that’s a ball game.
How about some highlights, courtesy of ESPN+ and GoMarquette.com?
I can’t be descriptive of the Dayton match. The fact of the matter is that WKU didn’t put together a streaming broadcast of this contest because I don’t know, they didn’t want to? ESPN+ wouldn’t let them because it’s a neutral site game and they don’t have the rights technically speaking?
Anyway, I’m just reading a stat sheet on this one, so here’s what I can tell you:
- Going from up 5-1 to down 17-12 is no way to win a volleyball set. Marquette still managed to make it close, fending off set point three times and pushing the first set against Dayton into extra points before falling 28-26 when Jenna Reitsma got blocked.
- Marquette used a lot of chunk runs in the second to build a lead, but it was still 21-20 MU when Hattie Bray missed on a swing late. Marquette figured out how to get the points they needed, helped along by a Taylor Russell service error.
- It looks like the same thing was about to happen in the third as Marquette let a 14-8 lead slip down to just two points. Dayton handed Marquette two points on a service error and an attack error by Liana Sarkissian before Carsen Murray and Aubrey Hamilton stuffed Sarkissian for a 21-15 lead. The Golden Eagles were able to guide it in from there and Reitsma got the 25th point.
- Dayton seemed to be on their way to a fifth frame when they turned 13-11 Marquette into 18-16 Flyers. A service error by UD’s Alyssa Miller ended up as the trigger on a 7-0 run, so that’s 23-18 before Reitsma and Hamilton closed it up.
Jenna Reitsma hit .286 to rack up a match high 17 kills, and she was joined in double digits by Hamilton (14) and Hattie Bray (10). Yadhira Anchante had 40 assists and 16 digs to push her to tournament MVP status.
Up Next: A big time challenge awaits. Marquette got back on track with two quality wins over NCAA tournament type teams here, and that evens their record out at 3-3 on the year. However, next up is a jaunt down I-94 to face #8 Wisconsin on Tuesday night. That match is set for 7pm Central, and it is 1) at the Kohl Center instead of the Field House and 2) televised nationally on Big Ten Network. The Badgers are also 3-3 on the year now as they took early season losses to #6 Louisville, #1 Texas, and #5 Stanford. They beat #23 Baylor in Waco back on September 7th and are coming off a 3-0 sweep of Milwaukee on Tuesday night.