Marquette volleyball came into Saturday’s matinee against Air Force looking to earn its first win at home and first sweep of the season.
And the Golden Eagles (4-6) used 50 kills as a team to do exactly that, sweeping the Falcons (8-3) 3-0 (25-18, 25-11, 25-19) and winning the match.
“I really liked the cleanliness of how we played,” Marquette head coach Ryan Theis said. “There’s a lot of good spots today.”
Statistical leaders
Senior outside hitter Aubrey Hamilton ended with a match-high 16 kills, hitting .412.
Junior outside hitter Jenna Reitsma finished with her first double-double of the year with 11 kills and 10 digs. Junior setter Yadhira Anchante also finished with a double-double of 36 assists and 11 digs.
“It feels so good,” Reitsma said. “It’s really fun when everything’s connecting, the whole team is improving with hitting, and when we keep that momentum we can string points together and it makes the game more fun.”
For the Falcons, senior middle blocker Aaryn Scires finished with eight kills.
Overpowering on offense, beating the blockers
Air Force came into the match as No. 2 in the country in total blocks (124.5) and as the No. 12 team in blocks per set (2.90). 6-foot-0 junior middle blocker Mac Russ was 13th in the country with 1.48 blocks per set.
With the Falcons’ dominant front court defense and the Golden Eagles’ hitting power, it was going to be a case of an unstoppable force meets an immovable object.
“If we could find the one-on-ones, we have a good scheme (and) they’re very well coached,” Theis said on beating the defense. “It was just a matter of, could we pass well enough to find one-on-one situations? And I thought we did.”
But Hamilton and Reitsma broke through Air Force’s net presence to finish with a combined 27 kills.
The Falcons ended the game with nine blocks and one block error on 113 Golden Eagle attacks.
Securing the sweep
Marquette had won the second set 25-11 and looked to sweep the match 3-0.
At the start of the third frame, the Falcons came out firing and got an early 7-2 lead over the Golden Eagles. Theis called timeout, and Marquette started to heat up.
Piecing together a 5-0 run, the Golden Eagles tied the set 7-7 and erased the Falcons’ early lead.
Three points later, Marquette took its first lead of the set and didn’t look back, winning the frame 25-19 and the match 3-0.
Up next
Marquette will stay at the Al McGuire Center to play No. 7 Oregon Sunday afternoon. The game starts at 1:00 p.m. CST and will be broadcast on FS1.
“They’re huge, big team, very physical,” Theis said. “We’ve served four pretty good matches in a row. We have to keep that going for tomorrow.”
This story was written by Jack Albright. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter/X @JackAlbrightMU.
