#19 Marquette Lays Claim To First Place In The Big East

Thanks to double digit kill nights from both Aubrey Hamilton and Hattie Bray, YOUR #19 ranked Marquette Golden Eagles are now in FIRST PLACE in the Big East at 1-0 after defeated DePaul 3-0 (25-15, 25-20, 25-15) on Wednesday night at the Al McGuire Center. Marquette is now 10-1 on the year overall, have won eight straight matches, and are undefeated at home this year.

Is Marquette in first place because no one else plays a Big East match until Friday? Yes, but alone in first place is still alone in first place, stop asking questions and arguing.

A standard issue back and forth start to the match ended when Marquette ripped off four straight points capped by a kill from Hamilton to go up 11-6 in the first set. They then traded points with the Blue Demons before throwing together a 6-0 run to stake themselves to a 23-13 lead and then just carry it home from there. That’s what happens when you hit .464 and hold your opponent to just .114.

Marquette kept that hot streak going into the second set, jumping out to a 7-2 lead on a kill by Hamilton in the early going. The margin eventually grew to seven on, again, a kill from Hamilton, but then DePaul started edging back into this thing. Just a couple of points here and a couple of points there, but eventually a service error by MU’s Ella Foti was backed up by two kills from the Blue Demons, and it was a two point game, 21-19. Head coach Ryan Theis took a timeout there to rally the troops, and they responded with a 4-1 burst to close the set out, this time with Carsen Murray providing the fireworks.

DePaul had the early advantage in the third set, going up 6-4 on Marquette after an attacking error by Ella Holmstrom. MU seemingly didn’t appreciate that, and scored 10 of the next 12 points capped off with a kill from Jenna Reitsma. That made it 14-8 Marquette, and the stretch eventually turned into an 18-5 run that put the Golden Eagles up 22-11. Theis started emptying his bench after that, which led to not the cleanest volleyball in the world and DePaul snagged a few extra points before Reitsma wrapped up MU’s first Big East win of the season.

Aubrey Hamilton had 14 kills on the night while hitting .444 to help the Golden Eagles hit .402 as a team against the Blue Demons, while Hattie Bray added 10 kills on 15 swings from the middle. Yadhira Anchante had 35 assist in just three sets while just missing a double-double with nine digs. Hamilton did get to that double-double with 10 digs, but Carly Skrabak got the honors for the match high total with 11.

How about some highlights, courtesy of GoMarquette.com and FloSports?

Up Next: Marquette still has three more matches on their 10 game homestand coming up, and the next one will be on Saturday night. That will be Butler coming to town for a 6pm start, less than 24 hours after they play DePaul on Friday. The Bulldogs are 6-6 on the year right now and are currently on a three match losing streak.