Marquette volleyball fought until the end — the third set showed that much.
But Wisconsin is the 7th best team in the country for a reason. And, Marquette just stopped receiving votes in the AVCA coaches poll on Monday — for a reason.
Once the Badgers started Badger-ing, the Golden Eagles were unable to match for as long they needed to, leading to a dominant sweep (25-15, 25-14, 25-18) in Fiserv Forum and happy bus ride back to Madison for those in red & white.
“When we played focused, we showed that we can play at [Wisconsin’s] level. The challenge of volleyball is just sustaining,” Marquette head coach Tom Mendoza said. “We just weren’t able to stay focused the way that we’re capable of.”
The “focused” play Mendoza referenced was on display at times throughout the night.
Early in the first set, Marquette kept it close, competitive. In the third, it was tied halfway through and the Golden Eagles trailed by one late.
But, that “focused” wasn’t present enough for Marquette, and the “sustaining” found itself too often in the backseat.
In the first, the Badgers opened what was a one-point lead to 13-6, scoring seven of eight points and forcing the Golden Eagles’ first timeout of the match.
By that point, only Natalie Ring had multiple kills, and only one other in the blue & gold (Ella Holmstrom) had a single one. Beyond them, it was crickets. By the Golden Eagles’ next timeout, which came when they trailed 19-9, only Elena Radeff added one. Everyone else, more crickets.
In the second, there was no “focused” to be sustained in the first place.
Marquette hit a lowly -.083 — its first time this season in the negative — as Wisconsin went for .600. The Golden Eagles, despite taking nine more attacks, converted two less into points on the scoreboard (10-8).
“Credit to them and their block moves in defense and finding ways to keep the ball off the floor,” senior outside hitter Natalie Ring said. “But we can work a little bit better together too, to get ourselves in rhythm.”
At the end of the second, right after its worst hitting frame of the season, Hattie Bray stood in the on-court huddle and screamed at her teammates to keep fighting.
And it worked, at first.
After “sustaining” a hefty amount of “focused” play, the Golden Eagles trailed 19-18. But both faded away, with their chances of winning, after the Badgers ended the match on a 5-0 run.
“We just try to do a better job of being the team that plays a little bit more focused when we have the opportunity to play again on Friday,” Mendoza said, referencing when No. 15 Florida comes to town in former Marquette head coach Ryan Theis’s return.
Wednesday there just wasn’t enough.
This article was written by Jack Albright. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter/X @JackAlbrightMU.
