On Saturday afternoon No. 19 Marquette took on St. John’s in front of fans dressed as aliens, witches and even a foot.
The Golden Eagles were able to sweep the Johnnie’s, who is third in the Big East, in straight sets (25-23, 25-16, 25-20) inside the Al McGuire Center.
It was a block party for Marquette as it had a season-high 13 blocks in the match.
“Really liked 13 blocks in three sets,” Marquette head coach Ryan Theis said. “I thought our pin blockers did a pretty good job on set up, our middles did a pretty good job closing, and they make it hard to kill.
In the first set, Marquette got out to an early 4-1 lead while on a 4-0 run. The Golden Eagles ultimately held a six-point lead when the score was 17-11. St. John’s battled back and took a 22-21 lead forcing a Marquette timeout.
Coming out of the timeout Marquette scored four of the next five points to win the set 25-23.
“I think at the end we just really focused on defense and just making sure that they didn’t get any easy kills,” junior middle blocker Carsen Murray said.
The Golden Eagles opened the second set on a 3-0 run, setting the tone for the remainder of the set. Marquette went on multiple scoring runs en route to a 25-16 lead with its biggest lead of the set being 10 points.
“I think a lot of the adrenaline and momentum from the first set carried over to the second set,” Murray said. “It was just important for us to keep on the pedal and keep going and keep up with that momentum.”
The third and final set was back and forth with 11 ties. That was until the end when Marquette went on a 6-0 scoring run to win the set 25-20.
Murray had a career-high nine total blocks to go along with seven kills and two digs.
“I think she was getting on their side of the net,” Theis said. “She certainly works on that a lot, it’s one of our areas of focus, and when she has time to get over that far she’s pretty big.”
As a team, Marquette hit .323 and St. John’s hit .125. Junior outside hitter Aubrey Hamilton led the Golden Eagles in kills with 11 and had two aces and seven digs.
Marquette’s (18-2, 9-1 Big East) next match is Wednesday when they travel down I-94 to take on DePaul (7-15, 3-7 Big East) at 7 p.m.
“We’ll be ready to look at DePaul on Monday. I’m sure these guys are enjoying this evening and a break tomorrow,” Theis said. “Then Monday, Tuesday all eyes on DePaul.”
This article was written by Ben Schultz. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @benschultz52.
