Marquette Is Picking Up Big East Weekly Awards All Over The Place

With the fall sports season in full swing, it’s not surprising that the weekly awards from the Big East are stacking up for Marquette. Five different athletes won six different honors from the conference for their performances last week.

Let’s start with women’s soccer. Perhaps the most interesting development of the week is Maddy Henry winning her second straight Goalkeeper of the Week award. Here’s how the league office described her performance:

Henry helped extend RV Marquette’s shutout streak to over 380 minutes with back-to-back clean sheets this weekend. The sophomore combined for a trio of saves as the Golden Eagles blanked Central Michigan and Mercer at Valley Fields.

As was the case last week, we have to point out that according to the league’s own statistics, Henry only has two shutouts on the season as opposed to the four straight that Marquette has posted. While she hasn’t allowed a goal since late in the second match of the season, the four goals allowed in the opener against Stanford end up giving Henry a goals-against average of 0.87 on the season. That’s the fourth best mark in the conference for right now, and her save percentage of .792 is also fourth best. This is the third straight week that Henry has been recognized by the Big East, as she was on the Weekly Honor Roll after the first weekend of action this season.

Kylie Sprecher has put her stamp on the still very young Marquette season, and she was rewarded with a Freshman of the Week award on Monday. Here’s what the Big East said:

Sprecher scored the lone goal in Marquette’s 1-0 win over Central Michigan on Friday and posted an assist on Eli Beard’s match winner on Sunday against Mercer. She earned Offensive MVP of the Marquette Invitational as MU improved to 5-1. The rookie started both matches at forward and played 157 of 180 minutes.

The freshman from Menomonee Falls is fourth on MU’s roster in points with a goal and two assists. She’s also tied for the fifth most assists in the conference, but that’s because there’s a four-way tie for first place. It’s worth noting that MU’s Carrie Madden and Darian Powell are half of the players in the Big East with three assists already.

We have a third women’s soccer player to recognize, as Ryley Bugay picked up a Weekly Honor Roll nod. According to Marquette, this is the first ever weekly award for the redshirt junior from West Lafayette, Indiana. Here’s her write-up:

Bugay was named Defensive MVP of the Marquette Invitational, playing all 180 minutes as MU posted shutouts over Central Michigan and Mercer. The redshirt-junior is part of a Marquette defensive unit that has not surrendered a goal in the last 381:55, spanning four-plus matches.

It’s already been a pretty eventful season for Bugay before earning this honor on Monday. She scored her first career goal on a penalty kick against Louisville earlier this season, and that also doubles as her first career points for Marquette. After sitting out the 2014 campaign, Bugay has played a significant role for the Golden Eagles ever since and is currently leading MU in minutes played this year.

While women’s soccer had three different players grabbing up three different awards, the volleyball team has one player raking in two awards. Freshman libero Martha Konovodoff was named Big East Defensive Player of the Week as well as Freshman of the Week. Here’s how the conference broke down her performance last week:

The Marquette freshman defensive specialist led the league in digs per set this week with 5.25 as Martha Konovodoff had 12 digs in a three-set sweep over Miami Ohio, 24 in a five-set loss to Wichita State and 27 in a four-match win over IUPUI. Her 27 digs against IUPUI was a league match high for the week in all four-set matches played. Her 24 digs against the Shockers, who were receiving votes in last week’s poll, were the third-most in match highs this week. In three matches for Marquette, Konovodoff had just one reception error. In addition to her defensive specialties, the freshman averaged 0.42 assists and 0.25 points per set via three service aces.

To give you a perspective on what Konovodoff is doing as a freshman for Marquette, we have to crack into the Big East stat sheet. She’s second in the league in digs per set (4.46) and is tied for 16th in service aces per set. It’s still early, but she’s on pace to set the freshman record for digs and have the highest digs total in program history not recorded by Julie Jeziorowski or Lauren Houg. Given that Konovodoff is stepping in as MU’s libero as a freshman, we will have to keep an eye on her trajectory towards the program’s all-time record.

Marquette’s final honoree comes from the cross country teams. Senior Alec Miller was named as the Male Athlete of the Week for the sport. Here’s how the Big East explains it:

Miller took second place in a field of 72 competitors at the Flames/Flyers Challenge in Romeoville, Ill. His time over the 6K course was 18:41.96, a career best. Miller finished just three seconds behind the winner. His performance led Marquette to a first-place team finish.

Marquette went 2-3-5-6-7-10-12 for their scoring finishes in the race on Saturday, which was the first meet of the season for both the men’s and women’s teams. Both squads will be back in action this coming Saturday as they take advantage of a meet being hosted by UW-Parkside to run on the course that MU will use to host the Big East conference championship meet in mid-November.