So here she is, Aubrey Hamilton, the outside hitter who sprung up in the village town of Hartland, ventured three hours east to the college town of South Bend for two seasons, then came back only 30 minutes from home to the big city of Milwaukee.
She’s rather seasoned. She’s 22. She’s in her final year. She towers over her peers as she saunters down the bleachers from a postgame autograph signing to her postgame interview. Her shoes are nowhere to be seen. She speaks quick and to-the-point. She is all business. Not quite stoic, per se, but pretty darn close. Long story short, she’s been here before.
But not here.
So here Hamilton stood, on Friday night, 28 kills to her name for the first time in her storied collegiate career, minutes after guiding Marquette volleyball out of despondency and into ecstacy with a masterclass in a tizzy 3-2 reverse sweep over DePaul.
She had just put the cherry on top of it all.
It was the fifth and final frame when the Golden Eagles held a 15-14 advantage. They’d already squandered two match points after leading 14-12, so it was time for extra points. The powers that be deemed, after already two hours plus of jib-jab between the two programs, there would be even more.
But Hamilton had places to be, things to do, sights to see. Thus, she went ahead and stopped the chaos with her final kill of her career night, wiping away any remaining lachrymose that lingered inside the Al and lighting the building ablaze blue & gold — after a quickly-failed Hail Mary challenge from the Blue Demons paused the pandemonium.
Who else but Aubrey Hamilton?
Her 28th kill is enough to get the win for #muvb in extra points in the fifth set. pic.twitter.com/YGavLehcfs
— Jack Albright (@JackAlbrightMU) October 19, 2024
“It was pretty amazing,” she said about her reaction after winning the match, “because, we struggled in the beginning, and just to come through and win this set and the match altogether was awesome.”
It put a stop to a performance so mouth-gapingly, eyebrow-raisingly, mind-spinningly dominant that afterwards, not even her head coach knew just how good it was.
“I think it was 25,” Ryan Theis said about her final kill-count.
Only three short.
“She’s a point leader for her career,” he continued. “She’s always been in that position.”
That she has.
As a junior, she was the only player on Marquette with over three kills per set, averaging 3.45, and racking up a team-most 390. Last season, she beat both of those numbers, leading once again with 434, posting 3.77 every frame. This year, she’s earned 195 total with an average of 3.42 per set.
Ever since transferring from Notre Dame ahead of the 2022 season, Hamilton has been the Golden Eagles’ go-to hitter.
Friday night was simply more of that same — just to the nth degree.
After the first frame, Hamilton had six kills next to her name in the box score. After the second, that number was eight. After racking seven in the third — including three of the set’s final four points — it read a sparkly 15. And after she won the fourth with her 10th kill of the frame, a stat that likely made readers do a double-take, she’d tied her previous career-high of 25.
That must’ve been when Theis stopped counting. But not her.
Hamilton, who also became the 14th player in program history to record 1,000 kills, was getting every look imaginable. Cross-court slices, line-drives down the outside, roll shots and tips — the court was her playground. It was that kind of night.
But, it was also a much finer continuation of what has been her most impactful stretch of games this year.
Last weekend, Hamilton racked a then-season-high 17 kills — 11 less than Friday — against St. John’s and 15 against Villanova. She hit .384 across both matches — .316 and a season-best .452 — and found her way onto the Big East Weekly Honor Roll for the first time this year.
“To see her continue to ride this,” Theis said, “we call that a little bit of a bender.”
Hamilton came into her final season as a unanimous preseason All-Big East First Team honoree.
It’s unclear if any of the conference’s coaches foresaw a 28-kill drubbing in her future, but what is clear is if she can continue to play like she did Friday, she will also end her final season as a unanimous All-Big East First Team honoree.
So she’ll move along to the 11 remaining conference matches, performing, the only question being how much longer the “bender” will last.
This article was written by Jack Albright. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter/X @JackAlbrightMU.
