The Marquette women's volleyball team ended their Big East conference season on a sour note, losing coach Pati Rolf and to Pittsburgh in a four-day span.

Pittsburgh marked the ninth loss for the Golden Eagles in the Big East conference.

Players said the sudden resignation of former coach Pati Rolf impacted the team's performance in varying degrees.

Senior Ashlee Fisher, who played her final Big East game Sunday and made 12 of the team's 34 kills, said the coach's departure affected the team "a little."

"But I think it made us come together more and play harder," Fisher said. "On Friday night we came out knowing we were going to win because they hadn't won a game yet…I think that carried on into Sunday. We came out laid back and it just didn't work."

Although on Friday the team beat West Virginia 3-0—a team has not won a single conference match this year—the Golden Eagles' scores did not highlight the win.

Blocking and defense hindered the Golden Eagles throughout the two matches. In the second set of West Virginia's game, Marquette tallied zero blocks, while West Virginia made two.

By the end of the game the team stepped up its defense and blocking, making 39 digs to West Virginia's 26, but one would expect higher scores against a team with a 0-14 record in conference.

The lack of able blocking and defense was even more apparent in Sunday's 3-0 loss to Pittsburgh, now qualified for the Big East Championship.

Marquette made 17 digs to the Panthers' 26. Freshman libero Amy Deelo made zero digs, marking the first time she recorded zero all season.

"Our defense and blocking is our bread and butter, so when that struggled I think our front line really wasn't used to that," assistant coach Raftyn Rignell said.

Outside hitter Leslie Bielski said the blocking had its highs and lows but ultimately negatively affected the defense in the Pittsburgh game.

"At times the blocking was great, we didn't have much at all the first game, and the second game we started coming around, with spurts of blocking. It definitely came and went," Bielski said. "The defense was a little off, that probably has to do with the blocking."

She said the team's younger players did step up during the season, even though overall, the team's scores don't show wins.

Freshman middle blocker Tiara Russell, who holds the highest number of blocks on the team with 105, made six kills (tied with Rabbecka Gonyo for the second highest number of kills in that game) and just two blocks in Pittsburgh's game. Russell said she was pleased with her kills but disappointed with her blocking.

"I thought I accomplished a lot with my hitting but my blocking should have been up there," Russell said.

She said Rolf's departure had little impact on the team.

"I don't think it affected it that bad at all," Russell said. "It was a very tough situation but we know we had to fight for her and fight for our team."

Freshman outside hitter Ciara Jones, who made six kills in West Virginia's game and four against Pittsburgh, said she thought Rolf's resignation had a big impact on the team's performance.

"I think it affected it a lot," Jones said. "But there's nothing we can do about it. We have to go out and do what we could do."

The Golden Eagles wrap up their season in the Western Michigan Thanksgiving Tournament against Western Michigan and Miami.