After a physically and emotionally draining weekend against two of the Big East’s best teams, the Marquette women’s volleyball team will have a quick turnaround as it prepares for the Big East Tournament, beginning in Pittsburgh, Pa., against host Pittsburgh on Friday.

After coming from behind to defeat the Louisville Cardinals in five sets last Friday, the Golden Eagles lost in consecutive sets to the Cincinnati Bearcats on Sunday, a loss which kept them from their first ever Big East title. Despite the loss, the team’s confidence is still high knowing what it has done over the course of the season.

“We can’t look down at just that one game because we’ve been playing the whole year so well and doing great as a team, winning 15 games in a row,” junior outside hitter Ashley Beyer said. “We can’t just let this one game affect us and then go into the Big East tournament and not play well.”

The team also found positives in both Friday’s win and Sunday’s heartbreaking defeat to use going forward.

“We learned that we have to play hard like that all the time,” freshman libero Julie Jeziorowski said. “And I think we were a little tired Sunday, but this weekend we don’t have time to be tired. We have to push it until the end.”

Marquette will enter as the No. 3 seed in the Big East Tournament, where it will play the No. 6 Pittsburgh Panthers, who it defeated in straight sets on Halloween at the Al McGuire Center. Beyer led the way in that match with 14 kills while junior outside hitter Ciara Jones had nine kills and zero errors.

However, coach Bond Shymansky knows the Panthers will have the home court advantage and be ready the second time around.

“I think they were a team that was still looking for their lineup and looking for their identity when we played them a month ago, and now I think they’ve found out,” he said. “So we’re definitely going to have our work cut out for us with them.”

The Golden Eagles have not been to the Big East Tournament since 2006, so experience will be at a minimum come Friday night. However, Shymasnky believes earlier road tests and the always-challenging Big East schedule have them prepared for the weekend.

“I think earlier in the season, playing at places like Stanford, Minnesota, St. Mary’s and Northwestern, all of those are designed to prepare us for high level competition in high pressure situations,” Shymansky said. “So as long as our team is willing to draw on it and have confidence out of those experiences, we’ll be in business.”

If the Golden Eagles are able to knock off Pittsburgh, they would play Saturday in the semifinals and potentially Sunday in the Big East Championship, meaning Marquette could play three games in as many days. For Shymansky, all that means is doing what they’ve done all year from both a physical and emotional standpoint.

“Physically we’re clearly prepared and our strength staff has done a great job with that,” Shymansky said. “I think every team at this point is running on fumes, but I think the bigger part is having that mental and emotional fortitude, trying to stay out of the highs and lows as we go through Friday, Saturday and Sunday.”