Sweet Christmas, did Marquette volleyball go the long way around to getting to a seventh straight Big East win and a 9-1 mark in conference play this weekend or what?
On Saturday, Marquette beat Butler 3-0, on set scores of 25-21, 25-20, and 25-21. On the surface, it looks like the Golden Eagles rolled through the Bulldogs. They hit at least .250 in all three sets and finished the match at .344 as a team. Butler never broke .250 in any of the three sets. MU got at least .200 hitting from all four
women who cleared 10 attacks in the match, led by a .375 from Carson Tyler on her way to a match high 17 kills and a .450 from Tani Juric that netted her 10 kills on 20 swings.
That’s the full picture. When you zoom in, what happened on Sunday — we’ll get to it, I swear — well, if it doesn’t make sense, it at least comes into fuller relief. In Set #1 against Butler, Marquette seemed to be on the verge of breaking it open, but they kept letting the Bulldogs back in. Exhibit A: Leading 18-12, a service error by Avery Helms triggered a 5-0 Butler run, and hey, now it’s 18-17, and now it’s 22-21. MU got three kills to close it out, but WOOF, that was close. Set #2: Marquette had to push back on an early Butler lead and the Bulldogs kept carving away at the Golden Eagles’ lead. 25-20 looks comfortable at the end, but it was 22-19 just moments earlier. Set #3: Marquette got up by six, 15-9, but inch by inch, here’s Butler, using an attack error by Julia Stanev to make it 21-20 at the end. Two kills and a block means Marquette scores the last three points, but it wasn’t a super fun time, either.
Marquette’s big problem here? Nine service errors against just five aces. Two blocking errors. Three receiving errors. Mix in the 14 attacking errors — not that big of a deal when you’re hitting. 344, but you see the vision here — and that’s a whole set’s worth of points (and more!) that Marquette handed to Butler. It wrapped up in the minimum but it took effort to close it out each and every time.
Highlights, courtesy of GoMarquette.com and ESPN+:
And so, Sunday against Xavier. You’d think that Marquette would have a little bit of an edge, as they moved through Butler in just three sets while Xavier went to five against DePaul on Saturday before losing. Maybe that edge, Xavier not quite being as rested, is why Marquette won the first set 25-17 even after Xavier jumped out to a 6-1 lead in the first set. The Golden Eagles outscored the Musketeers 24-11 the rest of the way, and looked like they were ready to click through to their seventh straight win relatively easily.
25-14 Xavier in the second. Marquette hit -0.091, yes, in the negatives, with just seven kills and 10 errors. Marquette led 2-1 and then gave up a 9-0 run and never got back in it.
Okay, a weird set, fine. Shake it off, win the next two, wrap it up in four.
25-17 Xavier in the third and it wasn’t that close. A 7-1 run had the Musketeers up 10-3 early, a kill by Charlotte Moriarty left 1) Marquette down 12-6 and 2) setter Luanna Markus so discombobulated that head coach Tom Mendoza subbed her out for Lauren Young, the UNC Wilmington transfer playing in her fourth set of the year and her first match in over a month. I was in the building for this match. I cashed out at 15-6 Xavier, and the lead peaked one point later at 16-6. It was 19-11 late. Marquette scored four in a row to make it 19-15 and provide the illusion that this got competitive. It did not.
So, no, I don’t have an explanation as to what happened to get Marquette to take a 13-7 lead in the fourth set and then score six of the final seven points of the set to emphatically end any chance of Xavier diving back in. 19-14 was the closest it got late before Carson Tyler got one of her team high 23 kills to win the frame 25-15 and force a fifth set. Well, at least no explanation other than .314 hitting beats .032 hitting every day of the week.
I was home by this point, and I saw this was happening. I stupidly turned on the ESPN+ broadcast even though it was starting to seem very clear that I was the problem for Marquette. What did I get? 2-0 Xavier to start. Nice job, Andy.
That two point lead would be the largest margin in either direction here in the final set. Marquette went up 8-6, and 11-9, but they couldn’t get further away. Xavier tied it at 11, at 12, at 13, and at 14. Extra points. Of course. Why not. A kill by Carson Tyler moved Marquette back to match point, and a block by Tani Juric and Julia Stanev held up to the scrutiny of a Xavier replay challenge to give the Golden Eagles the 16-14 set and the 3-2 victory after looking absolutely dreadful for half the match.
Carson Tyler was mostly fine here, because 23 kills and .271 hitting is fine, and seven errors happens when you take 59 swings sometimes. Emma Parks was mostly not terrible at .222 when things were said and done, and honestly? That was the first time that the sophomore cleared 25 swings in a match since September 13th, so I’ll take it. .167 from Tani Juric and .130 from Molly Welge? Not good. Two errors on nine attempts — my god, it felt like she had way more than nine just before I left — for Luanna Markus? No good. Two errors on five swings in one set by Caydence Doolan? Blech.
It all worked out in the end, but YIKES, it got real bad in the middle there. I can’t even say “ah, yes, what a great team experience for all of these freshmen to fight through it and win in five” because Marquette was getting blown the hell out of this match. You go to five on two lost sets of 25-23, that’s just volleyball, baybay. This was something else entirely. Marquette can not play that completely lost in the weeds, up to and including needing to yank Luanna Markus out of the match to sit quietly on the sideline and think about what she was doing, ever again this season.
Highlights, such as they are, courtesy of GoMarquette.com and ESPN+:
Up Next: THANK GOD Marquette figured out this Xavier match. I can not imagine how much I would not be looking forward to Thursday night’s battle for first place in the Big East if they had gone out sad in four sets, much less Sunday’s followup battle for first place. Yeah, it’s Creighton and DePaul week. Creighton lost to Georgetown back on October 17th, so they’re in a tie for second place in the Big East with DePaul (losses to Creighton and Georgetown) at 8-2.
Marquette hosts Creighton on Thursday night at 6pm Central time, and that game is on FS1. That’s on October 29th. One day later, Creighton visits DePaul to settle their problems. Then, on Sunday, November 1st, DePaul is in the McGuire Center for a 1pm Central time start on ESPN+. We will either have tremendous clarity on who is winning the Big East regular season title by sundown on Sunday, or everything will be a convoluted mess. One of the two.
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