It is going to be good news if Marquette goes into Big East play at .500 on the season.
Part of that is because league play starts next week, so MU has just these three upcoming matches left on the non-con deck. Part of that is because Marquette took a 3-1 loss to Dayton out in Ohio back in late August and a 3-2 loss last Sunday at Illinois where it was quite an accomplishment just to get that match to a fifth set. Part of that is Marquette signed up for three non-conference matches against top 10
competition, and well, with a roster that was going to require four freshmen to start, scheduling like that is signing up for three losses.
And so, with Marquette at 3-4 going into Thursday night in Madison, the most likely record going into Big East play will be 5-5. That’s presuming the Golden Eagles don’t shock the world against a top 10 opponent and that they come back to the McGuire Center and handle business against two teams that they should, by all accounts, do just that.
This isn’t an awful thing for Marquette, it’s just not a good thing. Losing to the top 10 teams is what it is, losing to Dayton and Illinois on the road aren’t bad losses. It’s just that those matches were Marquette’s chances to show that they should be an NCAA tournament team this season. As long as nothing weird happens this weekend, MU’s going to need to make their case in league play, and that means showing out against DePaul, Xavier, and Villanova, the only other Big East squads in the Evollve top 100 right now that aren’t ranked in the AVCA top 25 like Creighton is. Everyone else in the league is at #121 or lower, and don’t think I don’t see you down in the 200s, Seton Hall.
We’ll see if head coach Tom Mendoza’s plan to battle test his freshmen works out. But first, let’s make sure we get to next week at .500, okay?
You know what’s weird about this schedule? Western Michigan is coming to Milwaukee where they will play St. Thomas in the McGuire Center and Milwaukee over in the Panthers’ building on the east side… but the Broncos won’t be playing Marquette. That’s wacky, right? Why not fit in one more match with WMU in town? Getting them on the schedule would be useful, seeing as they’re at #120 in the Evollve rankings right now. Not sayin’, just sayin’.
Match #8: at #6 Wisconsin Badgers (4-4)
Date: Thursday, September 17, 2026
Time: 7pm Central
Location: UW Field House, Madison, Wisconsin
Television: Big Ten Network
Streaming: FoxSports.com/live or the Fox Sports app
Live Stats: Stat Broadcast
Marquette is 2-25 all time against Wisconsin and 1-19 since Marquette made the move to Division 1 volleyball. The Marquette win came in 2019 with both teams ranked in the top 15.
DO NOT BE FOOLED BY WISCONSIN’S .500 RECORD! Their losses are to the teams currently ranked #2, #4, #7, and #8 in the country. They also have wins over the teams ranked #3, #10, and #15, plus a win over an Auburn squad that’s 7-2 with only losses to UW and Minnesota. Man, that is a wild non-conference schedule, which makes their back-to-back against Marquette and Milwaukee almost like a vacation week for the Badgers. I would presume that head coach Kelly Sheffield is not saying that to his team, but you see my point. Just to drive it home: Evollvehas them at #1 in the country in strength of schedule. Marquette, who has not been taking it easy, is at #21.
Eva Travis and Audrey Flanagan are your top two attackers here. Travis has the lead with 3.19 kills per set, and Flanagan averages 2.93. However, neither woman is hitting over .200 on the season even though they’re the only attackers with more than 125 swings to this point of the year. It sounds like they’re going to get Jaela Auguste back in the lineup this week, and when you combine that with Grace Egan being out with a back injury for a still unspecified length of time, it’s clear that UW could use some extra options.
They don’t have to worry about setting, as Charlie Fuerbringer has that on lock. Even with the rough results, she’s still averaging over 10.5 assists per set. That’s not quite up to speed with the 12+ assists she averaged last year, but again: Crazy tough schedule. Fuerbringer is also #2 on the team in digs at 3.20 per set, which means there’s an artificial limit on how many assists she can get right there, and Anna Bardaro leads the squad with 3.53 digs/set.
Lynney Tarnow is Wisconsin’s biggest blocking threat at just under a stuff per set. Decelise Champion got her first action of the season this past weekend and finished up with nine assisted blocks in seven sets. That’s 1.29 per set in a slightly limited sample size, but you know what’s not limited? Champion’s size advantage against Marquette, as she stands 6’6”.
Match #9: vs St. Thomas Tommies (2-5)
Date: Saturday, September 19, 2026
Time: 2pm Central
Location: Al McGuire Center, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Streaming: ESPN+
Live Stats: Stat Broadcast
Marquette is 1-0 all time against St. Thomas. The lone meeting came back in 1985, which was the year before Marquette became a Division 1 program.
St. Thomas comes into this weekend after losing three out of their last four contests, although no one’s faulting them for a 3-0 loss to #13 Minnesota. One of those losses is to Milwaukee, which is why the Tommies are not playing the Panthers on their visit to southeast Wisconsin. I feel like all of this could have been organized better, especially since that match was part of an event hosted by UST. In any case, not a great start to the season for a team that was picked to finish second in the Summit League this season.
Both of UST’s top two attackers this season are hitting under .200 through seven matches, which is not great. Anya Schmidt already has 55 errors on 236 swings, which is how you hit .119 while averaging 3.19 kills/set. Ellie Gustafson is the only other attacker north of two kills a set, and she’s hitting just .190. If Marquette can make them do that for three sets on Saturday, I think we know how this is going to go.
While St. Thomas is only hitting .166 as a team, Morgan Kealy is doing a solid job distributing the ball. She’s averaging 9.26 assists per set and chipping in a pair of digs as well, so she’s making contributions across the board. Taylor McNear is your digs leader at 3.15, which feels a little bit like there’s a team effort in that department by the Tommies. 6’2” Addie Schmotzer is putting up just over a block per set, so that’s an obstacle for Marquette to solve along the way. Schmotzer and Gustafson are both from the Madison area, broadly speaking, so it wouldn’t be surprising to see a bit of purple decorating the McGuire Center here.
Match #10: vs Milwaukee Panthers (5-3)
Date: Sunday, September 20, 2026
Time: 2pm Central
Location: Al McGuire Center, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Streaming: ESPN+
Live Stats: Stat Broadcast
Marquette is, somehow, 36-46-1 all time against Milwaukee. The series dates all the way back to 1975, the first ever year of competitive volleyball at Marquette. 41 of those 81 matches happened before Marquette made the move to Division 1 in 1986, and since then the series stands at 24-16 in MU’s favor. Marquette has won the last 15 meetings with UWM’s most recent victory coming back in 2007. This is the fifth straight year that the two sides have met after restarting a series that went dormant after 2017.
Milwaukee was picked to finish fourth in the Horizon League this season, and that’s behind league favorite and noted Marquette opponent Wright State. The vote at the top of the league was close with Northern Kentucky landing just three points behind WSU, but the Panthers were well off the leading pace of 117 points with just 76 of their own. Still, their season has been trending in the right direction, as they go into the weekend on a five match winning streak. Yes, that’s going to come to an end on Friday barring the highest of comedy in a road match against #6 Wisconsin, but still: Five wins is five wins.
Yes, that does mean that they lost their first three matches of the season. Their opener was 3-0 to DePaul, and the Blue Demons were picked to finish fifth in the Big East this season. Milwaukee hit just .167 in that match and allowed .312 hitting to DePaul to give you a bit of a measuring stick/comparison for Marquette.
The Panthers have a trio of offensive leaders averaging between 2.4 and 2.9 kills per set. Annie Eschenbach is the leader at 2.84 kills/set, while Josie Noble and Ella Schuetz are tied at 2.45/set. Noble is the most efficient of the trio, hitting .285 while ranking third in the group in total attacks so far this season. Eschenbach and Noble are also a little bit better at getting you points elsewhere on the floor, as they average over 3.1/set there. Noble’s contribution there comes by way of blocks, as she joins Bella Lipski in averaging at least a block per set this season.
Elsewhere in defensive news, Kati Goba is the Panthers’ libero. She’s allll the way up there at 4.32 digs per set, and no one else on the team is north of three. Heck, Schuetz is the only other player averaging more than two, and she’s only at 2.19/set.
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