Well, shoot.
Marquette volleyball is about to fall out of the ranks of teams earning top 25 votes, and that’s because they went 2-1 in a set of three home matches this weekend against three teams that came in with losing records. The loss came in the first match of the weekend as MU fell in five sets (25-20, 22-25, 25-18, 20-25, 11-15) to Ball State. They followed that up on Saturday and Sunday with straight sets victories over James Madison and Milwaukee, and now the Golden Eagles are 5-2 on the year
heading into the three toughest tests of non-conference action.
Okay, so let’s just say it out loud: It’s a real problem that Marquette lost to Ball State. We’re going to keep circling back to precisely the extent of the damage to MU’s NCAA tournament profile all season long, so for the moment, let’s just point out that Ball State beat Milwaukee on Saturday and lost in a reverse sweep to James Madison on Sunday to move to 4-5 on the season.
The NCAA thing is going to be a problem, but the actual problem for Marquette is the number of times they had a chance to make sure they didn’t lose the match. To wit:
- Marquette could have just not fallen behind 7-2 to start the second set.
- Marquette could have just not given up a 6-1 run that let Ball State turn an 18-17 lead into a 24-18 lead and thus just need one more point to tip over and even the match at one set each.
- Marquette could have just not fallen apart while holding a 15-14 lead in the fourth set, committing attack errors on the next three points (although one was a block) to trigger another 6-1 run that left Ball State leading 20-16 and let them just trade points with MU the rest of the way to win the frame.
- And finally: Marquette could have just not blown a lead of 11-7 in the fifth set.
That last one is going to haunt Tom Mendoza until the end of his first season in charge of the Golden Eagles. All his team had to do was score four points before Ball State scored seven. They did the really bad thing: Give up eight straight points to lose 15-11. Four pure attack errors, two more on a BSU block, and a service ace from the Cardinals. That’s seven of the eight, and the one kill that Ball State got? That was the first of the eight. Seven straight miscues to lose and give the AVCA top 25 voters runway to drop the Golden Eagles off their ballots.
Bad! Really bad!
I wasn’t at this match, so I can not tell you what it looked like to watch this — and I’m not watching the ESPN+ replay like some kind of masochist to experience it — but in general: Marquette’s gonna lose a lot of matches this season if Natalie Ring, Elena Radeff, Kiera Schmidt, and Ella Holmstrom are all going to hit under .200 at the same time. Radeff was the best of them at .194. That group combined for 19 of Marquette’s 32 attacking errors in the match, and I want to make this point: I think I get why Tom Mendoza let Emma Parks go for seven errors on 21 swings. I’m pretty sure it’s because he was hunting around on his bench for answers because his starters weren’t giving them to him. I don’t fault him too much for it…. but also Parks had two of the errors in the 8-0 run to end the match….. after recording two as MU couldn’t stop the Cardinals down the stretch in the fourth set.
With that ugliness on the board, we do have to credit Marquette for taking care of business on Saturday and Sunday. Things were relatively drama free across the six sets, and if not drama-free, then at the very least, there were moment where the Golden Eagles said “nope, not today” to the Dukes and the Panthers. For example, from 17-16 in the first set against James Madison on Saturday, Marquette scored twice on kills, prompted a timeout from JMU, scored two more kills from Natalie Ring, prompting JMU’s other timeout, and then got an attack error from the Dukes out of the break. 22-16 Marquette, and easy sailing from there. Set Two saw James Madison take a 3-0 lead….. and also call a timeout trailing 12-6. A 6-1 run later on ballooned a mostly safe five point lead. In the third set, things were tied at 7 when Tom Mendoza called timeout for the first time all night. MU’s response? 5-1 burst, including a pair of aces from Isabela Haggard. The Dukes didn’t go quietly, and eventually they tied it up at 22. Marquette’s answer? A kill from Radeff, a kill from Ring that survived a JMU challenge, and a kill by Hattie Bray, and that’s 25-22, nothing more to see here.
The rundown on hitting there? Ring, Radeff, and Schmidt were all at .400 or better, so it didn’t really matter that Holmstrom hit .158 on 19 swings.
Sunday’s match against Milwaukee was a little bit more prone to what we’ll call lollygagging than anything else. Set 1: Marquette was up 19-8 before winning 25-17. That’s 9-6 Milwaukee the rest of the way. You see the point about lollygagging. Set 2: Marquette goes on a run to lead 17-10 before winning 25-20. 10-8 Panthers in the back half. Set 3: 17-9 Marquette after UWM failed a challenge, final score: 25-19. 10-8 in the back end.
It’s not that big of a deal, not really, Marquette won handily….. but you’d like to see a little bit more edge after that mess against Ball State, especially knowing what the next three matches holds.
Let’s check the hitting and get out of here: Ring over .400, Radeff at a killer .636, Holmstrom and Schmidt over .230. See the difference?
Up Next: Buckle your seatbelts, kids. On Wednesday, Marquette shifts the action downtown to Fiserv Forum to play host to Wisconsin. First serve is set for 8pm Central and Big Ten Network will have the broadcast. Tickets are very much still available. After that, MU will be back at the McGuire Center next weekend to host Florida and head coach Ryan Theis on Friday before hosting Minnesota on Sunday. Those three teams spent this past week at #6, #11, and #13 in the AVCA top 25, and the only thing to happen to affect any of that over the last seven days was Florida losing at #25 North Carolina on Tuesday.
