Marquette have made danced its way into the Sweet 16 for the second time in program history , but it couldn’t keep its playoff run alive as it fell to the No. 1 overall seed Texas Longhorns in four sets (14-25, 13-25, 25-19 and 17-25) Thursday afternoon.
“Congratulations to Texas, terrific team, amazing environment and great place to play,” Marquette head coach Ryan Theis said. “I’m just really proud of our team for the year that they’ve had. Excited so many are coming back.
“Our last three, four weeks was standing room only over 3000 (fans) at home against Creighton, a sell out conference championship and back-to-back over 2000 fans for us hosting the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament and then 4000 fans here. The last month has been pretty exciting for our group. … One heck of a last month and last four or five months and I thank our our players for that.”
Texas dominated in set one, jumping out to a commanding 11-1 start forcing Theis to burned both his timeouts within the first 12 points of the match.
The Golden Eagles would get as close as 10 points, 20-10, but the Longhorns used a 5-4 run to take the set capped off by kill from Madi Skinner.
Set two began more contested than the first, as Marquette only trailed by three, 11-8, early on. But after that, Texas took control for the rest of the stanza as it outscored the Golden Eagles 14-5.
It was Skinner once again who ended the frame with a block on sophomore middle blocker Hattie Bray.
Marquette was held to just seven kills and hit .000 in the set alone while Texas had 13 kills and hit .417.
The Golden Eagles got out to an early lead in set three, 9-4. Texas responded with two quick points before Marquette went on an extended 6-1 run, powered by four kills from Bray to take a 15-7 lead.
Both sides would exchange points before Marquette reached set point, 24-16, its largest lead of the match. Theis burn eda time out after the Longhorns scored three points in a row to cut it to a five point game, 24-19. Junior middle blocker Carsen Murray finished the set for Marquette with a kill.
Murray’s kill marked the first set won in a Sweet 16 matchup in Marquette program history. Bray finished the the frame with five kills and a block.
It is just the third time an opponent had pushed Texas to a fourth set since its loss to Baylor earlier this season.
The Longhorns raced out to a 7-3 lead in the final set. Marquette would build some momentum back as it outscored Texas 6-4 to bring it within a two point game at 11-9.
That is as close as Marquette would get as Texas took the set 25-17 to advance to the Elite 8.
Texas put up a season high 15 blocks on the afternoon with redshirt senior middle blocker Asjia O’Neal putting up seven block assists of her own.
Senior outside hitter Logan Eggleston led the Longhorn’s offense, putting down a stat line of 15 kills, nine digs, four blocks, three assists and three assists.
Sophomore Jenna Reitsma led the Golden Eagle attack with 12 kills and 11 digs for her 10th double-double of the season.
Sophomore outside hitter Aubrey Hamilton was limited to just six kills and had eight attack errors, holding her hitting percentage to -.059%.
Marquette concludes it season with a 29-4 overall and 17-1 Big East record.
This article was written by Jackson Gross. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @JacksonGrossMU.
