With the end of the regular season, Marquette volleyball seemed to also end its year-long inconsistencies.
The Golden Eagles have spent much of year one under Tom Mendoza flip-flopping between a team that can sweep the 15th-ranked team in the country (Florida) and take No. 12 to five sets on the road (Creighton), and a team that loses two-straight Big East matches for the first time in a decade (Georgetown and Villanova).
But, Marquette finished its final four matches before the Big East tournament with only one set loss, culminating in this weekend’s road victory at Butler (25-16, 25-20, 25-14) and Xavier (25-20, 25-18, 19-25, 25-13). Its last loss came on Nov. 1 to the aforementioned 12th-ranked Bluejays, 3-2.
Over the final regular season weekend, the Golden Eagles hit .310 and held their opponents to .088. Spearheaded by its two seniors Hattie Bray and Natalie Ring, they had 86 total kills to their two opponents’ 70. And, most importantly, they had less than half the attack errors (50-22).
For a team whose low points were low enough to put them on the NCAA tournament bubble — unless it can muster a Big East tournament championship and grab the conference’s automatic bid — the final two matches were the opposite.
On Saturday against Butler, Bray finished with 12 kills and Ring was right behind with 11. The Golden Eagles never hit worse than .240 in a frame and forced the Bulldogs to hit negative (-0.088) in the final set to finish .058 on the day.
Less than 24 hours later, it was a form of deja vu as Xavier went -.042 in the fourth set — compared to Marquette’s .387 — and .118 on the day — compared to Marquette’s .278. Ring finished the day with 21 kills while Bray had 11.
But on both days, it was the errors (or lack thereof) that told the story behind the wins.
The Golden Eagles never had more than four errors in any of the sets against the Bulldogs and ended the match with eight. Butler, meanwhile, never had less than seven in any of the sets and, after three frames, had 25.
Xavier never had less than six in any of the four sets while Marquette never had more than six, which it did only once.
After the weekend, the Golden Eagles end the regular season 17-9 and 11-5 in Big East play, going into the conference tournament as the No. 4 seed. They face the top-seeded Creighton Bluejays Saturday at noon at the Al McGuire Center.
This article was written by Jack Albright. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter/X @JackAlbrightMU.
