After Marquette volleyball’s first loss of the season on Friday, Head Coach Ryan Theis wondered how his young team would deal with the quick turnaround for two more matches on Saturday.
The answer: triumphantly.
“I thought we got stronger as the tournament went on,” Theis said.
The first matchup of the Mary Jo Wynn Invitational in Springfield, Mo., pitted the two teams in the country that are named the Golden Eagles — Marquette and Oral Roberts — against each other. Marquette let their inexperience show early on, surrendering a 2-0 advantage to their counterparts.
Even though Marquette rallied back to force a fifth set, they ultimately had no answer for Oral Roberts outside hitter Laura Milos, who tallied 32 kills. Her relentless assault on Marquette’s outmatched defense played a huge part in Marquette’s first loss of the year.
“[Milos] had all kinds of range, and the size of our block was not a problem for her,” Theis said. “She had a heck of a match, and we didn’t have enough points to answer.”
After an upset loss and a wholly uninspiring performance on defense, Marquette fought tooth and nail to secure a five-set victory over the University of Miami to improve to 3-0 against 2014 NCAA tournament teams this season. The Golden Eagles then followed up that win by handing host Missouri State their first loss of the year.
“We finished several deuce games [in the last two matches] and we didn’t in the first match,” Theis said. “So I feel like we got better at finishing.”
Taylor Louis put in another herculean effort for Marquette on offense. She recorded over 25 kills in each of the three matches and finished the weekend with 85 kills en route to being named the tournament MVP. With those kinds of stats, Louis will most likely earn Big East Freshman of the Week honors for a second straight week.
