Outside hitter Theresa Coughlin, libero Caitie O'Brien and outside hitter Aga Niemczewska began their senior seasons last Friday. In a way, head coach Pati Rolf is entering her senior season, as well.
In her three plus years at Marquette, Rolf has amassed a career record of 51-40, including the action from this past weekend when the Golden Eagles went 2-1 in their first tournament of the season.
"This is a team that can get to the conference final and stay in the top three in the conference," Rolf said. "I think it takes a team five years to get where it needs to go."
The senior season for the three also means a new conference in the Big East.
In the preseason poll the Golden Eagles were picked to finish fifth in the conference behind Louisville, Notre Dame, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati. Louisville received 12 of the 15 first place votes while Notre Dame received the other three.
In addition, Coughlin was named to the All-Big East Preseason Team. This is not Coughlin's first trip to a preseason team. Last year she was named to the All-Conference USA Preseason Team and ended up making the C-USA Second Team.
This season the team deals with the loss of departed seniors Erin Freer, Sarah Vernon and Erica Heisser, though Heisser has rejoined the team as an assistant coach.
Last season the team finished with a record of 22-7, recording more wins at the Division I level than any other volleyball team in school history. The Golden Eagles finished the regular season tied in second place in C-USA and advanced all the way to the C-USA finals before losing to Louisville.
"This year's seniors have picked up the tradition and intensity, and those seniors have put on the feeling and wanting to get to the conference finals," Rolf said. "Everyone knows what it was, and we all want it back. Not only the exposure, but the level of play."
Last year, all signs pointed to the Golden Eagles making the NCAA tournament, but the team was shut out at the selection show, going at least one more season in search of their first NCAA tournament birth.Not making the tournament "was an awful feeling when it happened to us, and we are not going to let it happen again," O'Brien said.
Coughlin is just as anxious to erase last season's disappointment with an NCAA bid.
"Every day in spring we had that in our mind, and we knew that when we got into the regular season, we were going to push every day to our limit to get into the tournament," Coughlin said.
The same Louisville team that ended Marquette's 2004 campaign looms as a large presence for the Golden Eagles as they both moved to the Big East. Last year the Cardinals defeated the Golden Eagles 3-0 in both matches and Marquette has yet to beat Louisville under Rolf.This weekend the team hosts its second tournament, the Marquette Challenge, in which they will play host to Iowa, IUPUI and New Hampshire.
This article was published in The Marquette Tribune on September 1, 2005.