I think the big takeaway from Monday night’s 3-2 loss to #2 Texas should be the following:
This Marquette team with just five returning players and three freshmen in the starting lineup isn’t quite good enough or at the very least coherent enough as a unit in Match #1 of the season to topple the #2 team in the country when said tippy top team is trying to hand them the win.
I feel very confident that if we see another team average 4.8 service errors per set against Marquette this season, the Golden
Eagles are going to find a way to pounce on that squad and secure the victory. You can look directly at the second set against Texas as the proof of concept here. Marquette got handed eight points by Texas misfires from the service stripe in that set, but because the Golden Eagles had 10 attacking errors to end up hitting -0.167 in the set, that left the door open. The Longhorns walked through that open door with a late 7-0 run to secure a 25-19 second set win.
If Marquette grows and develops as a team as this season goes along, as the parts all come together — freshman setter! freshman libero! transfer top attacker! — then they’re going to find a way to slam that door in that opponent’s face if given another shot at it. Yes, Texas was leaking oil all over Fiserv Forum all night long, that had a lot to do with Marquette staying right with the Longhorns over and over again.
But for now, Marquette isn’t quite good enough to stop the #2 team in the country from playing like the #2 team just long enough to escape the pit of their mistakes. That’s how Texas beat Marquette, and I think that head coach Tom Mendoza is going to make exactly that point this week and all season long. MU had the Horns down, but couldn’t finish the job.
Next time, I think they’ll be able to do it.
FUN FACT ABOUT THIS WEEKEND: From looking at the schedules for the two opponents that Marquette is facing out in Ohio, it would appear that technically, MU is playing in two different tournaments in two days. Here’s Dayton’s schedule, and Eastern Illinois and Santa Clara are playing in the first match of the Flyer Invitational, 8 hours before the Golden Eagles tangle with the Flyers. After that, Dayton plays both of those teams on Saturday. Here’s Wright State’s schedule, which has the Raiders opening up their season and the Raider Invitational against…… Santa Clara! Then they get…. Eastern Illinois! on Saturday afternoon before Marquette wanders in at night.
One metro area, two gyms, two events, same three opponents for the two hosts. Very clever. My only question is why aren’t we getting a Dayton/Wright State match here? The answer is probably because we get that one one week later in an event with Western Kentucky and Ball State involved as well.
Match #2: at RV Dayton Flyers (0-0)
Date: Friday, August 28, 2026
Time: 6pm Central
Location: Frericks Center, Dayton, Ohio
Streaming: ESPN+
Live Stats: Stat Broadcast
Marquette is 10-22 all time against Dayton. According to the record books, the series goes all the way back to a 2-0 Dayton win in 1978, and the Flyers went 4-1 in the first five meetings before the little “Joined Division 1” note in the history book. So, that’s 9-18 since then, but Marquette is 5-1 since a 3-2 win in 2009 kicked that stretch off. That also includes a 3-0 win in the 2019 NCAA tournament, and a 3-1 loss in the 2021 NCAA tournament. MU’s 2024 win over #24 Dayton is one of the 18 wins over a ranked opponent in program history, too.
Yes, Dayton hasn’t played a match yet this season. Officially, the season doesn’t actually start until this weekend, but the AVCA First Serve event has a waiver to be, well, first. The Flyers are coming off a 23-7 season a year ago where they were a perfect 18-0 in Atlantic 10 play but lost 3-0 to VCU in the semifinals of the conference tournament. That meant they missed out on the autobid, and at #47 in the RPI, they just didn’t quite have enough to get them an at-large bid. The weird part about that? Dayton seemed to be aware that they weren’t getting an at-large bid when the VCU loss happened:
Dayton finishes the 2025 season with a 23-7 overall record with an 18-0 record in conference play.
Selection Sunday was a week later!
Anyway.
The Atlantic 10 has annoyingly not put out a preseason poll as of Tuesday morning, so we’re running around here blind trying to figure things out about the Flyers. Dayton is going to be moving some deck chairs around this season, but they return Kamryn Hunt after she averaged 4.05 kills per set last season and hit a very strong .265. Hunt had over 400 more attacks than anyone else on the team last season, so she was carrying a heavy workload and doing it pretty well. #2 on the total attacks list was Corrie Anderson, and she returns as well for the Flyers. She averaged 2.63 kills on .210 hitting, but it’s worth noting that she only played in 81 sets last season. She missed a chunk of time early in the campaign, so no worries about her being ready to go at the start of the 2026 season.
Melina Schrader returns at setter for UD, but she wasn’t the primary setter as a freshman last season. She still averaged 5.76 assists per set in Dayton’s rotation, so if that’s the system that they’re sticking with, she’s ready to do her job there. That’s about it for notable returning contributors, though. Dayton has five transfers they’re working into the rotation, along with four freshmen and a pair of Flyers who redshirted in 2025 as well. It’s possible that catching Dayton as the rubber hits the road for the first time with this group — this is the Flyers’ season opener, by the way — will work out long term for Marquette.
Match #3: at Wright State Raiders (0-0)
Date: Saturday, August 29, 2026
Time: 6pm Central
Location: Nutter Center, Fairborn, Ohio
Streaming: ESPN+
Live Stats: Sidearm Stats
Marquette is 2-3 all time against Wright State. One of the losses is in 1981, before that mystical 1986 Division 1 barrier. The wins came in 1998 and 2021.
Look, it’s deeply rude for these conferences to not have preseason polls out by the time that I want to write the previews for the first matches of their teams’ seasons. Just like the A10, the Horizon League doesn’t have a preseason poll out as of Tuesday morning. I get that the season doesn’t start til the weekend, and I guess that Tuesday or Wednesday is a perfectly good time for you if you’re not participating in the AVCA First Serve, but I’d still be writing this preview now for Thursday evening publication even if MU didn’t play on Monday night. Let’s go, promote your teams!
ANYWAY
Because of the aforementioned parts of the Raider Invitational, this will actually be Wright State’s third match of the season and their second match in six hours. This is after they went 21-11 last season with a 13-5 record in Horizon League play. That landed them as the #2 seed in the conference tournament, and they swept both Youngstown State and top seeded Northern Kentucky to get to the NCAA tournament for the fifth time in the last seven seasons.
That makes them a pretty formidable program with an expectation of success, and here in 2026, they get to double down on that as the Raiders return their top three attackers from last season. Mya Ayro averaged 4.00 kills per set last season, and Katie Sowko was not far behind her at 3.27. Ayro was a bit more precise, hitting .233 to Sowko’s .165, but Sowko also registered over 200 more attacks than Ayro thanks to six extra sets in two extra matches last season. Middle blocker Reilly Zegunis rounds out the offensive trio here after playing in every set last season and putting up 2.33 kills per frame on .270 hitting.
Lauren Yacobucci returns to do the setting after averaging 10.55 assists per set last season. That was a top 20 in the country average a year ago, so take her lightly at your own peril. It looks like Taygan Corstange returns to play libero after appearing in all 118 sets and averaging 3.68 digs per set last season. Ella Gaona helped out there with 2.85/set while appearing all but one match for the Raiders. WSU was not a great blocking for points set a year ago with Zegunis as the top returning stuffer at 0.85 per set, and they do lose top blocker Taylor Bransfield (0.86/set) from the rotation.
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