In front of near 1,900 fans on family weekend, No. 19 continued its historic start to the season defeating the Butler Bulldogs (7-7, 1-1 Big East) in four sets (25-12, 22-25, 25-8, 25-19) Saturday night inside the Al McGuire Center.
“Happy to get the win, (it’s) nice to be 2-0 in league play,” Marquette head coach Ryan Theis said. “Some bunches of unforced errors here and there which I think made it pretty tight. I thought about the same time we would make a bunch of errors Butler would step up their game and take advantage.”
With their 11th win, the Golden Eagles have set a program best start to the season in NCAA Division I action.
Marquette jumped out to an 11-5 lead in the first set after two early scoring runs. Butler came within five with a score of 15-10 but that would be the closest the Bulldogs got as the Golden Eagles finished the set on a 10-2 run taking the 1-0 match lead.
In the first frame alone, the Golden Eagles hit .400 while they held the Bulldogs to .079.
Butler looked to change the tides in set two, getting out to a 13-9 lead. Both sides traded runs for the rest of the set before Butler put the nail in the coffin with two kills to close the set and win in 25-22.
Theis said that Bulldogs were able to capitalize on the Golden Eagles errors, as Marquette had seven attack errors to Butler’s three in the stanza.
The Golden Eagles came out hot in the third set with their first of two extended 6-0 scoring runs. The second of which gave them a lead of 19-5 seemingly closing the door on Butler’s chances of winning the set.
“We were making more mistakes in the second set so we decided to start cleaner,” sophomore setter Yadhira Anchante said. “We became pretty confident (that) we could win the game.”
In the fourth and final set Butler took a 17-13 lead while on a 6-0 scoring run. Marquette then responded with a 7-0 run to extend its winning streak to nine.
“They (Butler) were playing really well,” Theis said. “So we weathered the storm and fortunately got it back.”
Anchante had her first career triple-double in the win with 10 kills, 46 assists and 13 digs.
Anchante ties the second at 17 and Butler calls timeout. Two straight from BU and MU calls its own. Bulldogs lead 19-17. pic.twitter.com/iPxkjH8XFW
— Marquette Volleyball (@MarquetteVB) September 24, 2022
“We love it when she’s offensive, it helps keep the defense on edge,” Theis said. “It frees up hitters significantly and so hopefully more of those to come.”
Junior outside hitter Aubrey Hamilton and sophomore outside hitter Jenna Reitsma both finished the match with double-doubles. Reitsma had 13 kills and 15 digs while Hamilton had 11 kills and 11 dig.
As a team Marquette hit .333 and Butler hit .137.
Marquette (11-1, 2-0 Big East) will host UConn (6-7, 0-2 Big East) Friday inside the Al McGuire Center at 7 p.m. CST. The match will be streamed on Marquette University Television.
“We have to spend some time on us. All these mid weeks (games) has led to very health conscious, very conservative practices, minimal chunks, minimal reps and not that we’re going to go into a full world of, you know, kill them this week with activity,” Theis said. “But I’d like to get back to some training and back on the multi-courts and working on some skills that we need some work.”
This story was written by Ben Schultz. He can be reached at b[email protected] or on Twitter @benschultz52.
