2025 NCAA Volleyball Tournament
Second Round
#2 Louisville Cardinals (25-6, 16-4 ACC) vs Marquette Golden Eagles (18-10, 11-5 Big East)
Date: Saturday, December 6, 2025 Time: 5pm Central Location: L&N Federal Credit Union Arena, Louisville, Kentucky Streaming: ESPN+ Live Stats: Stat Broadcast Twitter Updates: @MarquetteVB Bluesky Updates: @AnonymousEagle
All-Time Series: Louisville leads, 27-5… but Marquette did win the last meeting, 3-0, in the 2013 NCAA tournament.
Hey, Tom Mendoza? The 2025 Marquette volleyball roster? Y’all? Focus on your prep for Saturday’s NCAA tournament second round match against #2 Louisville. Go ahead, y’all are busy, it’s okay, we’ll be cool without you.
[waits for them to leave the room]
Okay, cool. It is totally 100% cool and fine if Marquette loses to #2 Louisville on Saturday. That match is 100% house money for the Golden Eagles. Win in five, lose in three, whatever, this season has been a success no matter what because Marquette got into the NCAA tournament and then won their first round match.
Honestly, they probably didn’t even need to beat Western Kentucky to make it a success, given that this is Tom Mendoza’s first year in charge and his takeover of the program was a liiiiitle bit delayed because of the timing attached to Ryan Theis leaving for Florida after Mary Wise retired well after the season ended. But they did snag their second win of the season over the Hilltoppers, and that makes Marquette one of eight unseeded teams to win their first round match this year, and one of 16 teams to win an NCAA tournament match in each of the past four tournaments.
As for what Marquette will have to deal with in order to beat the Cardinals, scouting Louisville starts with figuring out how they use their top three attackers. Payton Petersen, Chloe Chicoine, and Kalyssa Blackshear are all averaging between 2.80 and 3.25 kills per set, and all three have at least 800 swings this season. Blackshear missed a match somewhere along the way to being named ACC Freshman of the Year, so I’d imagine that the gap between her and Petersen for second and third in swings would be a little bit closer if that wasn’t the case. Blackshear is the one hitting just short of .300 this year, so there’s a certain logic for head coach Dan Meske tilting the offense towards Blackshear just for the efficiency. Chicoine is a junior and Petersen is a sophomore, so it’s not like Meske is really ignoring youth in favor of seniority all that much.
Nayelis Cabello is averaging 10.36 assists per set as a sophomore, and boy howdy, Louisville’s just going to keep being scary for years off the core of this team, aren’t they? Cabello was ACC Freshman of the Year in 2024 while splitting time at setter, and she’s definitely held up as UL’s lone setter this season.
Much like their hitting, Louisville doesn’t rely on just one person to take care of business when it comes to blocks. Hannah Sherman and Cara Cresse are tied with 164 blocks in total right now, but since Cresse has two extra sets played, Sherman officially has the lead in blocks per set at 1.48. Cresse is barely behind her at 1.45, and we can’t ignore Kalyssa Blackshear averaging 1.05 blocks per set, too. At this point, you’re not surprised to find out that Evollve tells us that Louisville is #2 in the country in total blocks per set this season. Figuring out how to score around those blockers is going to be quite the task for the Golden Eagles.
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