Marquette women’s volleyball team fell in straight sets to No. 2 Wisconsin (25-15, 25-18,25-18) in front of a sold out crowd at the Al McGuire Center Sunday afternoon.
“I thought we put up a good fight, they’re definitely a really experienced and good team,” graduate student outside hitter Taylor Wolf said. “They have some high-level serving and passing experience which is pretty tough to beat.”
Overall, Marquette was out hit on the match .297 to .079 and struggled against the high-level hitters on the Badgers.
“I thought we could’ve made it a little more competitive,” head coach Ryan Theis said. “We missed two free ball opportunities, we missed a middle set we could’ve put it to within two or three, we had a block go six inches out of bounds that would’ve made it 14-12 in the third. Instead it became 16-11 timeout.”
Wisconsin controlled the first entire set of the afternoon. After jumping out to a 11-7 lead, the Badgers would go on a 7-0 run before taking the set.
Wolf led Marquette in kills in the first set with three and added three assists.
Marquette kept set two tight for the first half, keeping the score within one at one point. However, that would be as close as the Golden Eagles’ would get as the Badgers went on a 4-0 run forcing Theis to call a timeout.
Following the timeout, the Badgers went full steam, taking the set 25-18 as graduate student middle blocker Dana Rettke ended it with a kill.
In the final frame, Wisconsin would follow in similar fashion to the first two sets by going on a early run, forcing Marquette to call another timeout.
Marquette would answer back out of the timeout bringing the Wisconsin lead back within two. Then sophomore middle blocker Devin Robinson finished it for the Badgers on a kill to complete the sweep.
Wolf led MU with seven kills while adding 10 assists and six digs. Both graduate student outside hitter Hope Werch and first-year outside hitter Jenna Reitsma added five kills of their own. Werch contributed six digs in the match as well.
Jade Demps led Wisconsin with 14 kills while adding six digs.
The Golden Eagles hit .079 in the match while the Badgers finished with a .297 hitting percentage.
Marquette will open the Marquette Invitational against the University of Texas San Antonio (3-6) Friday at 7 p.m.
“The goal is to go 3-0 next weekend, (we) want to get those wins.” Wolf said.
This story was written by Ben Schultz. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @benschultz52.
