No. 19 Marquette closed out its 10-game home stand with a sweep over Providence (25-14, 25-16, 25-16) Saturday night. The win extends Marquette’s win streak to 11 as the Golden Eagles continue their historic start.
“Nice to see some other players get a little bit more opportunity here and there,” Marquette head coach Ryan Theis said. “Thought Nastya (Svetnik) played great. She’s getting a little bit healthier as the year has gone on.”
The big storyline of the night was Theis switching up his starting lineup as junior middle blocker Anastasija Svetnik and first year outside hitter Sienna Ifill both got the opportunity to run out of the tunnel for the first time this season. For Ifill it was her first collegiate start.
“It was really fun to have more of a diverse group out there. We play together all the time in practice so it really wasn’t anything new,” sophomore middle blocker Hattie Bray said. “It was just fun to see different people and see how it worked and it worked out pretty well.”
In the first set Marquette, got out to an 11-5 lead thanks to a flurry of scoring runs. The Golden Eagles continued that momentum for the rest of the set winning it single handedly, 25-14, while hitting .424.
Providence got out to an early 3-1 lead in the second set, which remained close until the Golden Eagles went on their longest scoring run of the match when they scored seven straight points to lead 14-9. After securing the lead Marquette wouldn’t look back on its way to winning the set 25-16.
Theis said that putting pressure on Providence from the service line was what helped his team break the set open.
The third set started out with both teams going back and forth until Marquette went on a 5-0 scoring run to take a 15-10 lead. Providence made a late push but it wasn’t enough as Marquette took the set 25-16.
Bray finished the match with a career-high 11 kills while hitting .647 and having two digs.
“She’s got an explosive arm and a heavy hand,” Theis said. “When she gets good looks, when Yadi (Anchante) gets her in good situations she’s going to score a lot.”
Marquette was able to hit .355 as a team while holding Providence to .060.
The next time Marquette takes the floor will be Friday at 6 p.m. CST when it take on St. John’s for its first road Big East match of the season.
“Now we have four in a row on the road. We deserve it after this long of a home stand,” Theis said. “We’ll have to go play well in someone else’s environment. In our first two road trips I don’t think we served particularly well. We get home and we serve great. We have to take our serving with us.”
This story was written by Ben Schultz. He can be reached at b[email protected] or on Twitter @benschultz52.
