Volleyball: #18 Colorado State 3, Marquette 0

Due to the women's soccer match starting about an hour before this volleyball match, I tuned in late to the free video stream offered by Colorado State.  I already knew that the Rams had jumped out to a 10-1 lead en route to a 25-15 first set win, so I wasn't surprised to see Colorado State with a lead late in the second, which they turned into a 2-0 advantage going into intermission.

After not being able to hit better than .100 in either of the first two sets, Marquette got on track in the third, hitting .250 with just four errors.  On the other side of the net, though, well, that wasn't going as well.  Colorado State hit .441 in the third set to raise their match long average to .294, and the Rams coasted to a 25-16 third set win for the sweep.  As I watched the third set, I was reminded of watching Marquette vs Louisville in the last few years of the 16 team Big East.  Marquette wasn't necessarily doing anything poorly, or even wrong, but like Louisville before them, Colorado State did exactly the right thing every single time and Marquette had no answer for it.

After two relatively easy wins in their first two matches, Marquette was bound to run into a more difficult time regardless of who the opponent was on Sunday.  It just happened to be one of the best teams in the country, which didn't help matters in the slightest.  Colorado State came away with the title in their own early season tournament, but both Lindsey Gosh and Meghan Niemann were named to the all-tournament team for their efforts.

Marquette was led on the day by eight kills from Courtney Kintzel.  Autumn Bailey was held to just seven kills against eight errors for a hitting percentage of -.030.  Mary Nilles had the better day setting with 14 assists, while Gabby Benda chipped in nine helpers in her time on the floor.  Libero Lauren Houg set a career high in digs for the second straight match with a match high 15 against the Rams.  Colorado State didn't need a lot of kills with Marquette contributing errors to their point total, but they did have three players with seven or more, led by nine from Marlee Reynolds.

Up Next: Still no home matches?  FINE.  MU will be in Washington, D.C., next weekend for a tournament hosted by American University.  The Golden Eagles will play the hosting Eagles (3-0) on Friday night before squaring off with Florida State on Saturday afternoon.  The Seminoles were ranked #13 in the country in the AVCA's preseason poll, and they opened the season 2-0.  One of the wins was against #7 Nebraska, so they'll likely be moving up the charts when the new poll is released later today.