The Golden Eagles seemed to play the same match twice but end up on different sides of it.
It feels like Marquette volleyball had two mirror image matches on Saturday and Sunday in Pittsburgh. If not true reversals, then at the very least, there were similar notes in one match that went for the Golden Eagles and one that went against them.
On Saturday, Marquette hit over .400 in the first two sets and overall for the match while holding East Carolina to less than .140 hitting in a 3-0 sweep. The Golden Eagles blew through the first two sets, holding the Pirates to just 31 combined points.
On Sunday, Pittsburgh extended their set winning streak to 27 straight. The Panthers hit at least .380 in every single set and held Marquette to increasingly smaller hitting percentages after MU hit .286 in the first. The Golden Eagles never hit 19 points in any of the three sets, and late points from MU made each of the three look a little bit closer than they actually were.
There’s not much to recap here other than to point out that Pitt is the #1 team in the country and East Carolina is not. The Golden Eagles trucked the team that’s probably lower than them in the hierarchy — ECU has now lost all three matches they’ve played this year against high major opponents — and then got trucked by the very good national championship contender. These things happen. It’s hard to beat great teams, and that was borne out on Sunday afternoon at Fitzgerald Field House.
If you’re wondering, “hey, is there something specific that went differently for Marquette in the two matches,” there is! Marquette’s offensive leaders were good once and bad once.
Carsen Murray: .636 vs ECU, .063 vs Pitt
Jenna Reitsma: .733 and .000
Hattie Bray: .467 and -.063
Weirdly, Aubrey Hamilton struggled both times out, hitting .143 and .053, but that’s the difference between beating ECU and beating Pitt. You can beat the Pirates when you have one attacker having an off day. You can’t beat the Panthers when everyone is having an off day, and it’s probably still really hard if it was just Hamilton off in the high grass.
Up Next: Marquette will play two more non-conference matches later on this season to see if they can improve on their 4-4 record against that type of opponent, but for now, it’s Big East matches in the immediate future. UConn comes to the McGuire Center on Friday to open Big East play with first serve set for 7pm Central, and Providence follows along on Sunday at 1pm Central. Both matches will be streamed on FloSports. The Huskies are a perfect 12-0 without a single match against a high major opponent, while the Friars are 7-4 with wins in five of their last six contests.