Marquette Volleyball Gets Two More Big East Wins

Marquette volleyball moved to 10-3 on the season and 20-5 overall with wins over the weekend against Villanova and Georgetown. It’s the seventh straight season where the Golden Eagles have hit the 10 win plateau in league play and the 20 win plateau overall.

Along the way, the Golden Eagles set a bunch of new historical standards. With eight kills in the first set against Georgetown, redshirt sophomore Taylor Louis hit the 1,000 kill mark for her career. She became just the second sophomore to ever get to that level, following quickly in the trail of Autumn Bailey, who finished her two years at Marquette with 1,059 kills.

Sara Blasier posted 40 assists against Villanova and 35 more against Georgetown to move to 2,113 helpers in her 1+ seasons in Milwaukee. That moved her past Mary Donohue at 2,087 for the seventh most assists in program history. Meanwhile on defense, Lauren Houg totaled up 28 digs over the weekend to move to 442 on the season. That vaulted her from the 12th best digs season in program history up to 7th best, just barely sneaking past Abby Roberts’ total of 441 in 1997.

In the preview for this weekend, I talked about Marquette aiming at getting revenge on Villanova for their loss at the Al McGuire Center earlier this season. I can’t guarantee that head coach Ryan Theis actually made that a focal point of the team’s preparation for the match, but it sure as hell looks like he did. MU got the 3-0 (25-21, 25-20, 25-16) win over the Wildcats on Friday night in just under 90 minutes. The Golden Eagles outhit Villanova in the match, .258 to .104, as Marquette picked up steam on both offense and defense as the match wore on.

It would seem that the Golden Eagles suffered a bit of a let down less than 24 hours later as they dropped the first set to Georgetown, 25-16. Maybe this doesn’t sound all that bad, but before this season, Marquette had won 20 straight sets against the Hoyas. Things turned around from there, though, as Marquette won the next three sets, 25-18, 25-21, and 25-18. It wasn’t an immediate and complete turnaround, though, as the Golden Eagles had to rally in the second set after going down early, and then had to fend off a Georgetown run after taking a 21-15 lead late. Marquette did explode out to an 18-8 lead in the fourth frame before coasting to the match victory.

Up Next: The Golden Eagles will be at home for the next two weekends as they put an eye on clinching a Big East tournament spot. There’s just one match next weekend, as Marquette will host traveling partner DePaul on Saturday night. The Blue Demons are 13-12 overall and 7-6 in Big East matches after splitting the weekend set with Georgetown and Villanova.