RV Marquette Volleyball Splits Their Visits To Providence & #19 Creighton

Breaking News: Marquette volleyball lost to Creighton.

I know, right, shocker of shockers. Their all time series has dropped to 5-22 favoring the Bluejays and MU has lost nine of the last 10 contests with Creighton.

Let’s rewind.

On Friday, Marquette visited Providence and came away with a 3-0 (25-13, 25-20, 25-21) victory. The win ran MU’s record in Big East matches out to 5-0 to start conference play and continue along their spot as the only unbeaten team in the league so far. That changed on Sunday when the road trip moved along to Omaha. There, #19 Creighton handed the Golden Eagles their first loss in Big East action with the match going 3-1 (20-25, 26-28, 25-19, 16-25) in the home team’s favor.

With that result and the combination of other results around the league over the weekend, Marquette and Creighton are now locked into a tie atop the Big East standings at 5-1. UConn and Xavier are at 4-2, and there is a three-way tie for fifth place at the moment. Aside: St. John’s has gone and thrown their win over Creighton directly into the garbage can by immediately losing their next two matches to Providence and Butler. What the H, Johnnies? It’s like you don’t even want to be considered as a team that’s actually trying to win at volleyball.

Let’s see, recapping. I dunno, man. Losing to Creighton again (and I don’t feel bad about saying it that way because head coach Ryan Theis has joked in public about playing the Jays is probably bad for his mental state as a coach) really sucks the wind out of the ol’ writing sails here. Marquette blasted out to an 8-0 lead in set #1 against Providence which turned into 11-1 and merely coasting it home 14-12 the rest of the way. The next two sets qualify as competitive in terms of score, especially with Providence going up 15-11 in the second before MU ripped off the next six points, and going up 17-11 in the third didn’t stop PC from pulling within two at 23-21 late. A win is a win, and a road win is always a good win, so it’s all good news from Friday, especially with Katie Schoessow returning to the lineup for Marquette.

Taylor Wolf led the way with 12 kills, while Savannah Rennie added 11. Claire Mosher had 20 assists to beat Wolf in their regular duel, while Carly Skrabak topped the charts with 11 of the team’s 45 digs against the Friars.

Highlights? Sure, why not, courtesy of FloSports and GoMarquette.com:

Onwards to Sunday and the house of horrors that is D.J. Sokol Arena in Omaha.

Marquette fell behind 10-3 in the first set after starting out 3-0 against the Jays. That’s a bad sign. The Golden Eagles scrapped their way back to 21-19 to make it interesting, but Creighton closed it out because they have Keeley Davis and Jaela Zimmerman. Set #2 was a battle, and a late pair of errors by the Jays allowed Marquette to run off four straight points and tie it at 23. Savannah Rennie fended off a set point twice, and Ellie Koontz did the same once as well but the Golden Eagles were unable to put the Bluejays in jeopardy before a block by Norah Sis and Naomi Hickman and a kill by Sis put Creighton up 2-0.

Set #3 is the one that Marquette won. Three blips of three straight points in the middle of the set turned it in MU’s favor. 10-9 Creighton became 12-10 MU, then 13-12 became 16-12, and 16-15 became 19-15. That proved to be the space that MU needed and a solo block by Carsen Murray on Sis made it 2-1.

And then Creighton went out to a 9-1 lead in the fourth. It got competitive for a second as a kill from Jenna Reitsma pulled MU within two at 16-14. I say a second because that’s nearly literally about how long it lasted. Kill by Zimmerman, kill by Davis, kill by Sis, boom, 19-14. Hope Werch broke up the run, and then five straight kills from the Jays capped by one from Sis made it 24-15. Yeah, this is over.

Three Golden Eagles made it into double-digit kill territory, led by 16 from Werch who had a match high 54 attacks but only hit .185. Claire Mosher nudged out Taylor Wolf for the assists lead at 24-23, but Wolf posted a triple-double with 13 kills and a match high 21 digs to go along with those helpers.

Here’s some highlights, such as they are, courtesy of Nebraska Public Media and GoMarquette.com. I gotta say, I was promised high quality cameras by Creighton SID Rob Anderson and he is not wrong.

Up Next: A pair of home matches on back-to-back nights this coming weekend. St. John’s and their inability to capitalize on quality wins comes to town on Friday night with first serve set for 7pm, while Seton Hall is in Milwaukee on Saturday starting at 6pm. The Pirates are 10-10 on the year right now and 2-4 in Big East play.