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Okay, facts out of the way first:
On Friday, #11 Marquette volleyball beat St. John’s three sets to one on scores of 25-23, 28-26, 23-25, and 25-15.
On Saturday, #11 Marquette volleyball beat Seton Hall in straight sets, 3-0. Your set scores in that one: 25-12, 42-40, 25-12
- 25-12
- 42-40
- 25-12
That’s not a typo. The second set went 34 points over the traditional “play to 25” stopping point as neither team could manage to record enough consecutive points to win by two.
Yes, we’re going to almost exclusively focus on this in this recap, because seriously: Who care about anything else that happened this weekend. Marquette lost their third set of the year in league play to a team that wasn’t Creighton on Friday. Psssssh, whatever. It was just the 20th set that the Golden Eagles have lost all season. It’s barely even news. The NCAA record for a set score since switching to the 25 point rally scoring format in 2008 is 46-44 in a set between Santa Clara and Saint Mary’s on November 21, 2017, and this thing was rocketing towards it very quickly. Santa Clara holds the record or most points in a set because they won, but they ended up taking the five set loss to the Gaels in that one.
Officially, Amanda Rachwal’s kill to tie the set at 24 is what pushed things into extra points. The second set was already wild by the time that happened. Up until that point, there had already been two lead changes and five ties. Seton Hall had led by as many as four (10-6) and Marquette had led by four (16-12) at one point as well.
Still went to 40.
Counting Rachwal’s kill, the extra portion of the set featured:
- Six lead changes
- 17 ties
- 13 (!) staved off set points by Seton Hall
- Four staved off set points by Marquette
It was completely bananas, and probably would have only been more bananas if it had been the third set, thus causing those 13 staved off points by Seton Hall to have been match points instead of set points.
Is the most bananas part about it that it was completely out of place in the rest of the match? It might be! Marquette hit .304 in the match against .151 for Seton Hall. In the first and third set, Marquette hit .483 and .387, while the Pirates hit .065 and .147.
The totally bonkers second set? .185 for Marquette and .197 for Seton Hall. MU got out hit in a set that they won and had to record 17 extra points in order to win!
Marquette ran out of subs, as you’re only allowed to make a certain number of substitutions per set. Seton Hall had burned both of their timeouts by the point at which Marquette led 21-18. Marquette burned their final timeout after SHU had tied it at 22, as head coach Ryan Theis had used one when the Pirates had taken a 10-6 lead early.
With the two wins over the weekend, Marquette is now 9-1 in Big East play and 19-3 overall. They trail Creighton by one game in the Big East standings, but they hold a two game lead over third place Villanova. It’s still going to be a bit before the Golden Eagles can clinch one of the four conference tournament berths, but that moment keeps inching closer and closer. The win over St. John’s helps, as it knocked the Red Storm to four losses in league play, and they currently occupy fourth place in the conference.
Up Next: The Golden Eagles get a big chance to create a division in the conference standings as they start a pair of back-to-back weirdly scheduled weeks. Remember the early mid-week matches against Butler and Xavier? Well, it’s time to even those out. Marquette will host Xavier on Friday night before traveling to Butler on Sunday afternoon next weekend. After that, it’s another home/road weekend split, but it’s back-to-back contests against DePaul. Very weird, relative to the rest of the schedule, but with Butler in fifth at 5-4, Xavier in sixth at 5-5, and DePaul in seventh at 3-7, a lot of the conference tournament picture will be decided in MU’s next four matches.