What an odd four days for Marquette volleyball.
They’re going to play Creighton and DePaul, in that order. Over the history of these three teams in the Big East together, given the usual travel partner pattern of competition, that has usually meant that Marquette was dealing with their toughest test of the season and/or trying to even out the season series to have a chance at the Big East regular season championship and then playing an opponent they hadn’t lost to since before Barack Obama was elected
President of the United States.
Now they’re going try to win a regular season sweep of Creighton for the first time ever, back to back regular season matches against Creighton for the first time since the second meeting of 2022 and first of 2023, and directly back-to-back for the first time since 2013. After that, Sunday’s contest against DePaul means attempting to avoid back-to-back losses to the Blue Demons since matches in September and October of 2001.
It’s weird how history is turning around.
Oh, right, and there’s the part where the Big East regular season championship might be essentially decided across these two contests in addition to Creighton’s match at DePaul on Friday night. Marquette is 9-1, DePaul and Creighton are both 8-2, and St. John’s is in fourth at 6-4. Two wins by Marquette would give the Golden Eagles a two game lead in the standings with four matches to play, and it would be two over only DePaul or Creighton, as one of them has to lose on Friday as well and that would give MU a three game lead against that squad. Things could still happen with four to play of course — we were VERY close to Something Happening on Sunday against Xavier, after all — but it would 100% be through terms dictated by Marquette from there.
Two wins by Creighton or DePaul would push that squad into a tie for first place, and if it were to be DePaul, the Blue Demons would be holding the tiebreaker with Marquette because of the regular season sweep. That’s not the messiest possible situation, because all three teams figuring out how to go 1-1 in these three matches would turn the final two weekends of the regular season into a three-way stand off.
By the way? This is a Marquette preview, so I don’t want to spend a lot of time on this, but: If Creighton goes 0-2, there is a way that the Bluejays miss the conference tournament that they are hosting. They would have to lose again, but they have to play Xavier and Villanova down the stretch, the two teams currently tied for fifth place in the league. Just sayin’.
So there’s a lot on the line. It’s probably for the best if Marquette leaves whatever mess they were going through last weekendin last weekend and come out firing on all cylinders here. A Big East regular season title is within their grasp with a team loaded up on freshman carrying massive roles. These experiences are absolutely going to pay off for head coach Tom Mendoza and his charges down the road over the next few seasons…. but they have a chance to do something special right now. May as well buckle up and actually do it, right?
Big East Match #11: vs Creighton Bluejays (13-9, 8-2 Big East)
Date: Thursday, October 29, 2026
Time: 6pm Central
Location: Al McGuire Center, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Television: FS1
Streaming: FoxSports.com/live or the Fox Sports app
Live Stats: Stat Broadcast
Bluesky Updates: @AnonymousEagle
Marquette is 8-33 all time against Creighton. Last time out against the Bluejays was a Marquette win, and that snapped a seven match Creighton streak in the series.
All of that preamble about the Big East regular season title up top is largely because Creighton lost to Georgetown on October 17th. That was a five set loss by the Bluejays, which is presumably particularly annoying because they won the first set 25-14 and then couldn’t pay off that promise. In fact, the Hoyas won the next two sets, including 25-17 in the third to push the Jays to the brink of a four set loss before they forced the fifth frame. Creighton had their chances to win in five, leading 13-11 and then letting GU tie it up, then taking leads of 14-13, 15-14, and 16-15. Each time Creighton found themselves serving for match point, they gave up a kill to Georgetown, and then finally the Hoyas turned it around and were serving for the win. CU got one last point off a block before a setting error and an attacking error handed Georgetown their first ever win over the Bluejays.
Creighton has played twice since then and things went mostly smoothly for them. UConn never scored more than 18 points in any of three sets last Thursday, then Providence went down in a sweep and scored just 16 and 17 points in sets #2 and #3. That first one, though…. 11-8 Providence with a 3-5 Big East record dragged Creighton to hell in that first set. The Jays were up 17-13 in the middle of it and seemingly mostly in control, then OOPS, tied at 18 and OOPS, service ace by Ava Dyer means Creighton’s actually down 19-18. PC got a 22-20 lead, but they couldn’t get the door closed. They had set point twice, then fended off three set points before Creighton finally got kills from Trinity Shadd-Ceres and Nora Wurtz to get the win and then deal with the Friars relatively easily after that.
The appearance of Trinity Shadd-Ceres there reminds us that we will be seeing a different Creighton team than when Marquette beat them in five sets in Omaha. At the time, that was the third of what turned into six straight matches where Shadd-Ceres was dealing with an injury that stopped her from being CU’s top attacker but not from playing regularly. Six straight contests with less than 20 swings even though she appeared in all the sets, and she was actually under 10 for the first five. She’s taken at least 28 swings in each of Creighton’s last three matches so Shadd-Ceres does seem to be back up to speed…… but also the first of the three was a 31 swing effort that ended in .129 hitting in the loss to Georgetown.
For the season overall, Shadd-Ceres is Creighton’s top attacker, just barely beating out Ayden Ames, 2.43 kills per set to 2.41. Because of the run of non-attacking matches, Ames leads in kills during Big East play with 2.76/set and Shadd Ceres is at just 1.39/set because she was playing in every frame but just not taking swings. That average is misleading because Shadd-Ceres is hitting .230 against Big East opponents and only .184 overall this season.
Katie Dalton has grabbed the reins as the top setter, playing in 36 of 38 Big East sets and averaging just barely short of 10 assists per frame. Saige Damrow has been steady in and out of Big East play as CU’s libero, averaging 4.31 digs overall and 4.21 against conference opponents.
Big East Match #12: vs DePaul Blue Demons (16-5, 8-2 Big East)
Date: Sunday, November 1, 2026
Time: 1pm Central
Location: Al McGuire Center, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Streaming: ESPN+
Live Stats: Stat Broadcast
Bluesky Updates: @AnonymousEagle
Marquette is 47-30 all time against DePaul. It’s 45-26 since Marquette marks when they joined Division 1 in 1986, and up until these two teams met in Chicago earlier this season, MU had been on a 30 match winning streak against the Blue Demons dating back to 2009.
Weirdly, it’s Georgetown that’s responsible for dictating terms as to who’s challenging for the Big East title. Yes, Marquette lost a 30 match winning streak against DePaul on September 30th down in Chicago, but MU is alone in first place right now because Georgetown did what the Golden Eagles could not: Win a five set match at McGrath-Phillips Arena. DePaul had to win the fourth frame to get the contest to five in the first place, and then the Hoyas scored the last seven points of the match to flip a nailbiter 8-8 tie to a 15-8 runaway victory. It was almost all Georgetown making plays on the Hoyas with just two of the seven going in the books as complete attacking misfires by DePaul.
It hasn’t been all sunshine and lollipops for DePaul since then, either. They flubbed a 2-0 lead on the road against St. John’s and then needed to win a fifth set with a 15-7 score to beat St. John’s to stay in contention with Marquette in Creighton. Six days later, they got pushed to a fifth set by that same Xavier team that would give Marquette hell a day later, and the Musketeers were up 6-3 early in that final frame, too. Even last Sunday’s 3-0 win over Butler wasn’t a picnic in the park, going with sets of 25-21, 25-23, and 25-19 after the Bulldogs pulled within two at 17-15 in the third.
But here they are, still in contention, they took a set from Creighton in Omaha, and they know they can beat Marquette, so why can’t they do it again?
Marquette lost to DePaul the first time around because while they were able to wrangle Kendall Timme and Martina Diana — both hit under .140 on 29+ swings — they weren’t able to limit everyone the Blue Demons sent to the net. Isabela Salomon Tavares was a terror with 20 kills and .405 hitting, and Jade Dudley-Epps chipped in 13 kills and .417 hitting. Tavares was a big deal down the stretch, getting four of her 20 kills in the fifth set alone including three of DePaul’s final four points, and she had six kills in the fourth set as DePaul won 25-23 to push it one more set, too.
Timme has over 800 swings on the season, so she’s going to be the focal point of the DePaul offense this time around. She’s their kills leader at 3.56 per set, and she’s the only Blue Demon averaging more than 3.40 points per set, way up at 4.03 a frame. Timme is only hitting .214 on the year and just .209 in Big East matches, so if MU can catch DePaul in rotations where they’re stuck sending balls to Timme and it’s not working, that’s where the Golden Eagles have to take advantage.
Leonor Polezzi is up over nine assists per set in Big East contests, so her guidance on the offense has gotten a little bit better as of late, relative to non-conference play at least. Polezzi is #2 on the team in digs in conference play as well, so she’s chipping in all over the place. DePaul isn’t going to have much success blocking for points with Jade Dudley-Epps leading the way in conference play at 0.71 blocks per set. That doesn’t mean DePaul’s not affecting shots, they’re just not sending them back with a lot of success.
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