Women's Volleyball: Marquette 3, Syracuse 0

Marquette women's volleyball opened the Big East portion of the schedule on Saturday afternoon by hosting Syracuse. The Golden Eagles were terrible hosts, defeating the Orange 3-0 (25-19, 25-12, 25-20). Lindsey Gosh led MU in kills with 12, with Holly Mertens also breaking into double digits with 10. Elizabeth Koberstein was dealing from the setter spot, handing out a whopping 39 assists, including 17 in the first set.

Syracuse (7-8, 0-1) took the early advantage in the first set, rolling out to a 5-2 advantage. A Gosh kill knotted it at 6 and a service ace from Danielle Carlson gave MU a 9-8 lead. A strong .452 hitting percentage in the first set led to Marquette (10-3, 1-0) taking the lead for good at 14-13 on an attack error by Syracuse's Andrea Fisher and Gosh had the last point of the set to give MU the 25-19 victory.

A 9-0 run by Marquette in the second set that pushed the lead to 18-7 was the difference in that frame. Five attack errors and a ball handling error by Syracuse made up the majority of Marquette's points on that run, and the Golden Eagles coasted to a 25-12 set win.

The Orange started out strong in the third set, jumping out to a lead of 5-1. MU was able to even things at 5, powered by two Mertens kills. The third set was Marquette's weakest in terms of hitting percentage, as they only hit .194, but they held Syracuse to just .054 and were able to hold on for the closest set win of the match.

Up Next: Marquette heads to South Bend on Saturday afternoon to play Notre Dame.