I knew that Marquette beating Creighton on Sunday was a big deal. Maybe less of a big deal than in years past since this was the first time playing an unranked Bluejays squad since the spring 2021 Big East championship game, and the first time in a regularly scheduled season match since the 2017 BE title match. Ranked Creighton has been A Thing, and that’s a big reason why, as it turns out, that Marquette exploded a bunch of ongoing streaks by the Bluejays on their way to creating a six-way tie for
first in the conference as of Monday morning.
Courtesy of Creighton’s recap of the five set MU victory, here’s the streaks that got broken up:
- A Big East record 50 straight regular season conference wins
- 8 straight wins over Marquette in five set matches without a loss in program history
- 28 straight wins over Marquette when winning at least one set
- 47 straight home wins in October
- 56 straight home wins over Big East opponents, both regular season and postseason competition
- 49 straight regular season Big East home wins
- 25 straight October wins
- 26 straight wins while hitting .250 or better
- 167 straight wins when serving for match point
The last time Creighton lost a Big East match before that run of 50 in a row? October 6, 2023 at Marquette. Since the start of the 2015 season, Creighton is now 105-2 at home against Big East competition. The other loss? February 6, 2021… to Marquette.
So, yeah, a VERY big deal on the Creighton side of things. As much as there’s been a “Marquette just doesn’t win the tight match in the very big spot” thing going on over the past several years, and this flew in the face of that with MU fending off match point four times in the fifth set, Sunday’s win over the Jays marked the end of a lot of things that have been going very right for Creighton over a number of seasons.
But enough about the Bluejays and their place in the Big East. We’ll come back to that in about a month. For now, Marquette has six Big East matches between now and when the Bluejays arrive in Milwaukee for the other side of the season series. Marquette is going two at home, two on the road, and two at home again to finish out a full round against everyone else in the Big East. This is obviously going to evolve and shift over the next three weeks, but right now, three of the six matches — one next week and both of them the week after — are against teams in the current six-way tie for first place in the Big East. Obviously winning all six will do wonders for Marquette’s NCAA tournament hopes, especially now that they have a second top 50 victory on the board.
More importantly, Marquette — as the team with the win over the preseason favorite — has a chance to dictate control of the Big East now. If Marquette can run the board, they can move themselves into position where Creighton needs to win in Milwaukee to prompt the possibility of a tie for the regular season title. Marquette is the team that controls whether or not that’s a thing for the Bluejays.
The thing about that is we know that Marquette didn’t have what it takes to beat DePaul just a couple of days before facing Creighton, and we know that MU didn’t look so hot while beating the Bluejays, either. The Golden Eagles have been a step short here and there this season, but some of that was expected. There’s way too many freshmen being relied on right now to trust that things are going to go smoothly all of the time. Heck, Marquette’s relying on more freshmen than they should be right now, as they beat Creighton with almost nothing from returning middle blocker Keira Schmidt — played in one set, had one attack, dealing with hand issue — and actually nothing from returning outside hitter Emma Parks, who didn’t play in that contest and has been dealing with a back issue lately.
To a certain extent, head coach Tom Mendoza is putting the finishing touches on this plane while it’s in the air. If he gets the descent equipment and landing gear working, it’s going to be a pretty good season in general, but that means things will be even better and well prepared for next season. Freshmen become sophomores, etc. But for now, Mendoza and his charges have to figure out how to win three sets against the two teams coming to Milwaukee this weekend, and they’ll have to worry about whatever’s next after that.
BY THE WAY! Saturday’s match is going to feature the banner ceremony for Tat Shiely and Allie Barber as they become the first Marquette volleyball honorees on the walls of the McGuire Center. Are those banners already hanging in the arena because it was just easier to do it during the summer as opposed to interrupting volleyball and basketball practices now? Mind your business and get down to the Al on Saturday to cheer!
Big East Match #5: vs Georgetown Hoyas (10-5, 2-2 Big East)
Date: Friday, October 9, 2026
Time: 7pm Central
Location: McGuire Center, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Streaming: ESPN+
Live Stats: Stat Broadcast
Bluesky Updates: @AnonymousEagle
Marquette is 25-5 all time against Georgetown. The Hoyas snapped a 22 match Marquette winning streak that started in 2011 with a 3-2 victory in D.C. last season. That was also the first time Georgetown had taken a set from Marquette since 2019 and it matched their set win total from the entire 22 match streak.
I don’t think there’s anything terribly surprising about Georgetown’s start to Big East play. They really didn’t have any notable wins or terrible losses coming into the start of conference action, and they dropped two on the road and won two at home. The home wins are over teams that are a decent chunk behind the Hoyas in the RPI as of Monday morning, and the losses are to the second best RPI team in the league and a team that’s at least comparable to GU to this point of the year. It probably would have been good for Georgetown to beat Butler if they were really chasing after a spot in the Big East tournament, but the Hoyas are on track to finish with a better record than last year. That’s not too bad of a deal.
As I suspected would happen, Kamryn Lee-Caracci’s hold on the title of top attacker has slipped. She’s down to 2.81 kills/set this season, and she’s now hitting .452. She was hitting .500 coming into Big East play, and as her accuracy falls as expected to happen, so does her kills average. Dionna Mitchell was only 0.05 kills behind Lee-Caracci at the start of league action, and while she’s slipped a bit as well, she’s only down to 2.92/set, and that’s now good enough for the team lead. Mitchell is the one leading in total attacks, which is helping her in the kills per set department, too. Georgetown’s also getting quality attacking from Berkeley Ploder, who is just below 2.5 kills per set and is hitting .445.
Ploder is also GU’s best blocker, coming in to this weekend averaging 1.16 blocks per set. She’s the only Hoyas over a block per frame, but Lee-Caracci is at 0.87 and actually has one more solo block this year than Ploder. Juleigh Urbina handles the setting to the tune of 8.15 assists/set, and that number is slightly deflated by Urbina also ranking third on the team in digs at 2.19/set. There’s only so many assists you can rack up when you’re recording the first touch, y’know? Urbina is also Georgetown’s most dangerous server, and I mean that from both directions. She has a team high 21 aces this season, which isn’t that far from one every other set on average, but she also has a team high 33 service errors. Dangerous as in most likely to grab an ace for them, but also as in more likely to hand a point to the other team.
Big East Match #6: vs Villanova Wildcats (9-6, 2-2 Big East)
Date: Saturday, October 10, 2026
Time: 5pm Central
Location: McGuire Center, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Streaming: ESPN+
Live Stats: Stat Broadcast
Bluesky Updates: @AnonymousEagle
Marquette is 27-5 all time against Villanova. Just like Georgetown, the Wildcats snapped a long Marquette winning streak in the series last season, and yes, those contests were back-to-back. The streak in question was 13 straight Marquette victories, starting back in 2o17 and that included a sweep in the 2019 Big East semifinals.
Abby Harrell’s quest to back up her Big East Preseason Player of the Year honors has been slowed down by two road blocks. The first is that she’s missed four of Villanova’s matches, although those are all in the past and she’s played in all four Big East contests so far. The second is that Villanova hasn’t been great. Part of that is Harrell’s absence, sure, but the Wildcats are 6-5 with her in the lineup and really only the Penn State loss is one that you can hand wave away. She’s also not playing up to the level that we saw from her last year, the kind of level that made it kind of clear that she should be Preseason POY. Harrell’s hitting percentage is down, .214 after last year’s .240, and presumably because of the lack of accuracy, she’s averaging just 3.03 kills/set instead of last year’s 3.77. If her average holds, it will be a career low for the Washington native. Her aces are down, her digs are dow… yeah. You don’t like to pin all of a team’s struggles on just one player, but when the player in question was the conference preseason POY and she’s one step off, that does kind of explain some things.
As a result, Harrell’s not actually Villanova’s top attacker right now. That honor goes to Campbell McKinnon, who is averaging 3.21 kills per set, and she’s hitting .378 as well. You might say “oh, sure, well, she’s a middle blocker, that’s where the accuracy is coming from,” except McKinnon is actually leading Villanova in total attacks. It’s only 20 more than Cat Young and 64 more than Harrell, but a lead is a lead, and no matter what, it’s all impressive for a 5’10” middle. By the way: Cat Young? 1.78 kills per set, .075 hitting, but the Wildcats coaching staff is letting her fired off more than six swings a set. What are we doing here?
Alyssa Nelson is VU’s primary setter, playing in all 58 sets and averaging 6.72 assists per frame. Ava Harris (29 sets, 4.21/set) and Selah O’Connor (32 sets, 4.06/set) have both gotten opportunities to play, and it’s been more O’Connor getting assists on the board as of late. Harris played in just four sets in Nova’s last three matches, and she didn’t record an assist in any of them.
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