On Friday, the Marquette women’s volleyball begins its second trip to the NCAA tournament in Minneapolis. The Golden Eagles take on Creighton (28-3) in the first round, with a potential matchup with Minnesota (24-7) looming with a win.
“We’re super excited,” senior right side hitter Holly Mertens said. “The past three practices this week were great. We’re all really energized and really focused on what we want to do against Creighton. It’s high energy, high focus and we’re ready to go.”
The Golden Eagles, who finished the regular season 26-7, discovered their fate on Sunday when the NCAA revealed the bracket.
“There’s a lot of excitement going into the NCAA tournament,” coach Bond Shymansky said. “We’re a little on edge, and that’s a good thing. We’re a little tight, and that’s also a good thing, because we need to be able to let that out during the match on Friday.”
Marquette is hoping to go further than it did last year, when it fell to Illinois (the eventual national runner-up) in the second round after defeating No. 24 Western Kentucky in the first round.
“We know that those are high-pressure situations,” senior middle hitter Dani Carlson said. “The times that we’ve been under pressure this season specifically we’ve risen and we’ve done well. Just relaying to the girls that we can believe in what we have and it’s what we’ve worked for the whole season.”
Interestingly, Creighton presents a very similar challenge to Western Kentucky, in that it only has three losses and won the championship in a mid-major conference, the Missouri Valley. Shymansky said Creighton’s momentum will pose challenge for his squad.
“Creighton’s a big blocking team,” Shymansky said. “They are a hot team for sure right now. They have a setter who’s super offensive and that’s something we don’t normally see.”
Coincidentally, Minnesota will present an equally similar challenge to the one Illinois did last year, provided the Golden Eagles get past Creighton. Like the Fighting Illini did in 2011, the Gophers will host their first and second round matchups and come battle-tested from the solid Big Ten Conference.
“Minnesota has three big guns,” Shymansky said. “They are a sizable team also. They hit the ball really hard with those three guns and they’re an established program for sure.”
During the week of practice leading up to the impending showdowns, Mertens has tried to keep the team focused on the task at hand. She said the focus hasn’t slipped much at all.
“A little bit, otherwise I think we’ve done a good job,” Mertens said. “I think we’ve been staying focused on the scouting report and knowing what we have to do but with a good balance of energy as well.”
Mertens went on to say that the bond between her teammates will help push them over the top to achieve their goals.
“The way that we work together, everyone does their part,” Mertens said. “That’s very important with our offense and everything that we do. Everyone’s bringing their best every day, and that’s very important for us.”
According to Shymansky, this team has been capable of its NCAA aspirations since the season began.
“We knew coming into the season that we were going to be a tournament-type team,” Shymansky said. “But when we actually beat Michigan here, the biggest ranked win ever at the Al McGuire Center for us and for our program, that was a moment that really catapulted out team forward.”
Carlson tried to put two wins into perspective and suspects she would get a little emotional regardless of the result.
“We would establish ourselves as the best season Marquette volleyball has ever seen,” Carlson said. “That’s really cool. We’ve worked really hard for it. I would leave the court crying for sure.”