I spelled it out in the preview for this week’s two matches for Marquette volleyball . Beat DePaul and snap a two game skid, the first in Big East regular season play since 2011. Lose to DePaul, hit the longest
regular season conference losing streak since 2009 and prrrrrrobably since 2008 since a weekend match with #12 Creighton in Nebraska is looming.
Pivotal, I think is the word.
It wasn’t a perfectly clean evening of volleyball down in Chicago, but YOUR Marquette Golden Eagles came away from McGrath-Phillips Arena with a 3-1 (25-23, 23-25, 25-12, 25-18) victory over DePaul. That moves Marquette to 13-8 overall and 7-4 in the Big East, and for the moment, it breaks the tie for fourth place with Georgetown in the league standings.
Set #1 was a pretty standard issue back and forth competitive volleyball set, and eventually, Marquette found themselves with a a 22-19 edge after three straight points capped with a kill from Elena Radeff. Okay, just arm’s length the Blue Demons, win the set, move on, whatever you do, do not let DePaul score four straight to take a 23-22 lead.
Yeah, so. A block and three kills did exactly that for DePaul, but the Golden Eagles recovered thanks to a kill from Emma Parks, a misfire by DePaul’s Isabela Tavares Salomon, and a kill from Hattie Bray. Could have gotten bad there, but MU solved their problem.
That burst at the end from Marquette did not carry into the second set as the home team went up 9-3 in the early goings, and then nudged that to 11-4. MU cut it to three, DePaul went back up six, MU closed to within one, 17-16, but just couldn’t quite push it over the hump. It was maybe there within reach at 21-20 DePaul, and MU ended up fending off a set point, but the Blue Demons prevailed on a kill by Kendall Timme.
Making DePaul work for the 25-23 win in that set may have paid off for Marquette, as they found themselves up 8-1 in the third. DePaul would get within four at 12-8, but it was 13-5 Golden Eagles the rest of the way, capped by an ace from Hattie Bray. It wasn’t even an overpowering offensive set from Marquette as they hit just .280, but you can do a lot of things when you induce nine attacking errors to suffocate DePaul down to just -0.059 hitting in a set.
The fourth frame was back and forth to start, slightly tilted towards DePaul. They pushed their margin to five points at 13-8, so it was starting to trend to playing a fifth set. Morgan Stewart dropped in a kill for an 18-14 lead, and I glanced at the live stats. At the time — technically two points later when I actually posted it, but you get the idea — Natalie Ring and Emma Parks were both hitting under .150, and with MU trailing by four late-ish, that seemed to be the old chestnut of “multiple attackers on this roster can not be having bad nights at the same time.”
Yeah, so here’s the thing. As I was glancing at the stats, Marquette triggered an 11-0 run to end the match.
Kill by Ring
Kill by Parks
Kill by Radeff
Ace by Isabela Haggard
Kill by Parks
Kill by Parks
Kill by Parks
DePaul attack error
Ace by Haggard
Kill by Parks
Ace by Haggard
25-18 Marquette, 3-1 Golden Eagles.
Yeah, sure, Natalie Ring ended up hitting just .137, partially because Marquette got locked into a rotation with Ring in the back row… but it was working and Parks lit on fire like it was NBA Jam. The freshman from Pennsylvania had five of her 10 kills in the match in that 11-0 close, and as a result, she closed out the match hitting .250. You can win when only one — Ring, in this case — attacker is having an off night, as Elena Radeff ended up at .286 and Hattie Bray was strong on 19 swings with a .421 hitting percentage.
How about some highlights, courtesy of GoMarquette.com and ESPN+?
Up Next: Yeah, so, there’s that Saturday night match against #12 Creighton. The Bluejays are a perfect 10-0 in Big East play so far this season, and they’ll host DePaul on Friday — at 11:30am! — before tangling with MU the next night. Unless you live in Nebraska, you won’t be able to watch the match, as it’s going to be exclusive to Nebraska Public Television.
