Women's Volleyball: Marquette 3, Seton Hall 2

Last week, when Marquette blasted through Seton Hall at home in fairly easy fashion, I put pictures of the Game Flow from the GameTracker into the recap to illustrate how the Golden Eagles took leads and never looked back because, y'know, everyone likes pictures.

Apparently Seton Hall knows how to use Google and they weren't super excited about that.

The Pirates went on a 10-1 early in the first set to jump out to a 14-4 lead. The run featured four attack errors by the Golden Eagles, two blocks by the Pirates, and two kills each from Stacey and Shelbey Manthorpe. MU was able to fend off set point three times to make the final look closer than it really was at 25-20. Marquette hit just .111 in the opening set while committing eight attack errors.

For a moment at the start of the second set, it looked like things were going to repeat themselves. Seton Hall went on a 6-1 run and took a 10-6 lead on a Stacey Manthorpe kill. But a 7-1 run by the Golden Eagles featuring three kills from Autumn Bailey made the score 13-11 and things stayed tight for the rest of the set. Meghan Niemann teamed up first with Lindsey Gosh for a block and then with Bailey to move to set point at 24-22. The Pirates rallied to take the next point, but Niemann evened up the match at 1 set each with a kill.

Marquette had an ugly start coming out of intermission. First a service ace by Stacey Manthorpe, and then consecutive combo blocks from Ashani Rubin and Molly Grammer gave SHU a quick 3-0 lead. They bounced back to tie it right away on two kills from Bailey and one from Gosh, and from there, the two teams were unable to gain a noticeable advantage in the set. A kill from Nele Barber and a service ace from Elizabeth Koberstein made it 20-18, and Gosh recorded four of the last five points of the set on three kills and a set point ace to put MU up 2-1.

Both teams hit under .250 in the fourth set, and both sides committed seven errors. But it was Seton Hall that came away with the extra point win on the strength of four kills from Shelbey Manthorpe and three from Danielle Schroeder. It was that third and final kill from Schroeder that avoided match point for Marquette and tied the set at 24. An attack error by Niemann gave SHU the advantage and Manthorpe's fourth kill pushed things to a decisive fifth set.

MU took the early advantage in the fifth, before Seton Hall bounced back to take a 9-8 lead. Marquette used a 7-2 run to take control of the set, however, and closed out a hard fought five set win on - what else? - a kill from Bailey.

Bailey led MU with 20 kills, and Gosh chipped in 15. Niemann also broke into double digits with 11 kills. Seton Hall was led by 17 kills a piece from both Schroeder and Stacey Manthorpe.

Julie Jeziorowski held things down in the back line with 21 digs, and Bailey added 13 for a double-double. In surprising news, Elizabeth Koberstein had "only" 54 assists to "only" average 10.8 per set, well off the just short of 12 assists pace that she's been on all season long.

Up Next: Marquette attempts to clinch a share of the Big East regular season title tomorrow afternoon against St. John's (16-14, 5-9 Big East). The match will start at 1pm Central and it will be streamed live on ESPN 3.