Marquette volleyball, it turns out, had no intentions of repeating Friday’s antics.
One five-set barnburner this weekend was enough.
The Golden Eagles (10-6, 6-1 Big East) made sure not to prolong the victory celebration Sunday over Xavier when they won the first set by 12 points (25-13). They’d go on to win the remaining two — 25-20 followed by another 25-14 clubbing — to secure the sweep.
“I said on the bench before it, we could really use one of those games where we start out as the team winning,” head coach Ryan Theis said. “So we were fortunate to do that.”
They did in part because it wasn’t only Aubrey Hamilton’s day — it was everybody’s.
Five different players hit over .250 — led by Hattie Bray (.615) and Natalie Ring (.522) — and five different players had at least five kills.
And with all that, Hamilton still found a way to tie for the team-leading kills, 13 to be exact, because of course she did. She also paced with a match-high 16 digs, to mark her fifth double-double of the season.
Behind her came Ring (13), Bray (8), Carsen Murray (6) and Ella Foti (5).
Even Yadhira Anchante got in on the action with two of her classic no-look dump-overs that give defenders so little time to react they can only watch them fall and hit the floor in front of their eyes.
“Any time we can be diverse, spread the ball around and get other attackers involved it keeps blocks off balance,” Theis said. “A lot of it has to do with first touch pass quality, dig quality, set quality.”
As a team, the Golden Eagles never finished a set with a hitting percentage under .200: .538, .389 and .222.
Marquette opened the first frame with four straight points, and a quick 8-2 lead forced Xavier’s first timeout. The set ballooned up its 25-13 final, with the Golden Eagles’ blistering .538 hitting percentage being matched up with the Musketeers’ far less impressive .208.
While Xavier wouldn’t let itself get ran off the floor in the second frame, Marquette’s unrelenting attack was not to be trifled with, and the Golden Eagles won 25-20.
The third and final set looked to be more of the same — a close battle with Marquette always one step ahead — and it was, that is until the Golden Eagles closed the match on a 9-0 run to secure its fifth sweep in conference play.
“The theme of some of the second and third sets was (Xavier) trying to muck it up a bit and create off blockers on the ground and try to throw it around,” Theis said.
“We just wanted to be clean and generate quality swings and it just took us half of (set) two and half of three to get a rhythm of that.”
Marquette now turns its attention to the annual Milwaukee Derby when it hosts UWM Tuesday at 7 p.m. CST.
This article was written by Jack Albright. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter/X @JackAlbrightMU.
