It was deja vu for Marquette volleyball.
A back-and-forth game that went down to the wire — and a disappointing ending for the Golden Eagles against the St. John’s Red Storm.
In the two programs first matchup in October, St. John’s won the match 3-2 and sophomore setter/right side Erin Jones finished with the Red Storm’s first triple-double in over a decade. Friday, she was one kill short of repeating that achievement, earning 20 assists, 12 digs and nine kills.
“They feed her a lot in perfect situations,” Marquette head coach Ryan Theis said. “We did a pretty good job of stopping some of those. Just think they were winning the transition games throughout the match, just by a small margin, but they were winning it.”
With the same exact final set score as the two teams’ first matchup in Queens, Marquette fell to St. John’s 3-2 (25-11, 14-25, 25-20, 22-25, 13-15) in the Big East Tournament semifinals at the Al McGuire Center.
“We missed a few opportunities. I thought the the time to take advantage was the fourth set and then jumped out to a lead in the fifth and just missed opportunities. It’s tough to win against a good team,” Theis said.
“Lodi and Jones could get hot and they did. So when you’re playing against two hot hitters, you’ve got to execute on your chances.”
Tight finish
The fifth and final period of play began, and Marquette looked like its first set-selves again with quick set-to-kill offense and controlled defense.
Immediately taking a 5-1 lead — which was comprised of three kills from senior outside hitter Aubrey Hamilton — the Golden Eagles only needed 10 points to win the match. But then St. John’s responded, immediately erasing the lead.
Jones pieced together two consecutive kills and Marquette called timeout, trailing 9-6. Out of the break, Jones got her third consecutive kill to give the Red Storm a 10-6 lead.
After that, it was back and forth, with the Golden Eagles making it a one-point game, but the damage was done and Marquette fell 13-15 in the final set and 3-2 in the match.
Statistical leaders
Hamilton finished with a team-high 19 kills, hitting .312. Junior outside hitter Jenna Reitsma ended with a double-double of 12 kills and 13 digs. Junior setter Yadhira Anchante finished with 42 assists and graduate student libero Sarah Kushner earned 17 digs.
Sophomore outside hitter Lucrezia Lodi led all hitters with 20 kills, hitting .302. Junior outside hitter Giorgia Walther also earned 15 kills.
As a team, Marquette hit .207 and St. John’s hit .156, but the Red Storm finished with more assists (52-47), kills (54-50) and service aces (12-5).
Up next
Marquette (20-10, 16-2 Big East) now waits for the NCAA Tournament selection show Sunday at 5 p.m. CST to see if its season will continue into December.
“Hopefully this made us better,” Theis said. “We’ll await Selection Show Sunday. I think our body of work is enough to be in the field. We’ll wait and see.”
This article was written by Jack Albright. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter/X @JackAlbrightMU.
