After a two-game road trip that included stops in Chicago and Indianapolis, the No. 17 Marquette women’s volleyball team returned home to Milwaukee to host the Georgetown Hoyas at the Al McGuire Center.
The Golden Eagles won their sixth game in a row as they dominated the Hoyas, sweeping them by scores of 25-17, 25-13 and 25-10.
It was all Marquette in the first set as they jumped out to a 9-2 lead, before cruising to a 25-17 victory. The Golden Eagles hit .353 while holding the Hoyas to .207 while forcing five attack errors.
In the match, Marquette had 12 service aces to Georgetown’s two.
“I thought we needed to serve a little bit tougher, I was disappointed to see that we are 7th in the league in aces per game and we really challenged our team this week to do better with that,” Marquette head coach Ryan Theis said. “I thought they did a great job putting service pressure on them and getting those guys out of system.”
The second set was much of the same as Marquette continued to control the match jumping out to a 12-6 lead. Georgetown would cut the lead to four, 14-10, but the Golden Eagles would respond with a 5-0 run and wouldn’t look back as they took the second frame 25-13.
Sophomore setter Yadhira Anchante had three kills, nine assists and two service aces in the set alone.
“I think she saw really well what was going on the other side of the net, she can get vision on that because our passers and defenders are getting quality digs and she knows what she’s doing up there,” Theis said.
Marquette put the match away early in the third stanza as they raced out to an 8-0 lead before Georgetown head coach David Heller would call timeout. The Golden Eagles cruised the rest of the way to a 25-10 victory.
Sophomore outside hitter Jenna Reitsma finished the night with nine kills, eight digs and two service aces.
She was followed by junior outside hitter Aubrey Hamilton who collected nine kills, four digs and a block.
“We just had the mentality today of being aggressive from the service line and that’s something I’ve personally worked on this season is being consistent with my serve and I think that if we get the other team out of system and it makes all of our jobs easier on the other side of the court,” Reitsma said.
Marquette hit .382 for the game while holding Georgetown to .087.
The Golden Eagles (21-2, 12-1) will be back on the court Saturday night as they host the Villanova Wildcats at 6 p.m. CST.
“We’re just going to keep working on defending one-on-ones, we’ve gotta dig some of those balls out, we’ve gotta continue service pressure and see if we can make it multiple matches in a row that we can have five or six servers all feel on and in rhythm,” Theis said.
This article was written by Jackson Gross. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @JacksonGrossMU.
