#12 Minnesota Sweeps Marquette

I know that coaches love to say that there are no moral victories, you either win or you lose, or either you get a win or you get a learning opportunity, or whatever.

But I can’t help but leave Marquette’s 3-0 (28-26, 25-21, 25-21) loss to #12 Minnesota in women’s volleyball on Sunday evening thinking that the Golden Eagles came out of the entire week’s worth of matches in a much better place than they started it.

Yeah, they lost. Yeah, they lost in straight sets. But the Golden Eagles got run over by #7 Wisconsin on Wednesday and then beat #15 Florida in straight sets on Friday. As long as Marquette looked competitive with the Gophers on Sunday, essentially proving that beating Florida wasn’t just one night in a vacuum, that’s good for the direction of the squad this year.

It felt like that’s what we saw. This wasn’t Wednesday against Wisconsin again, this was a volleyball team that was unafraid of a ranked foe in front of them and took it to them for three sets. In fact, honestly, if head coach Tom Mendoza wanted to tell his charges that they let this match slip out of their hands, he’s not wrong.

Marquette was up 12-7 on Minnesota in the first set, and then after the Gophers tied it up at 12 out of a timeout, the Golden Eagles fired off four straight of their own to go up 19-14. Again, five straight for Minnesota, and MU ended up on the short end of the stick in the duel to the finish. That’s underselling what happened, because Marquette had set point at 24-23, 25-24, and 26-25 before UM scored three straight for the extra points victory.

Set #2? Marquette was up 13-12 and just let the Gophers get a couple spots where they scored two or three in a row to win 25-21. Small margins. Almost there, not quite. You get it. Same goes for Set #3, as Marquette went up 4-1 to start, and after Minnesota tied it at 4, the Golden Eagles built the margin back up to 12-8, and four points again at 15-11. That’s when Minnesota made it clear that they had no interest in playing a fourth set in Milwaukee and they scored 11 of the next 12 points. 22-16 Gophers, and it’s to Marquette’s credit that they got it back to 23-20 and made the visitors get up, run over, slam the door, throw the deadbolt, and nail a plank or two across the frame just to make sure it was over.

If Marquette was playing a lesser team, maybe one that didn’t spend the previous 36 hours talking about how this MU team just beat #15 and they absolutely can beat you, too, maybe something goes slightly differently along the way and this is a Marquette victory. But it didn’t and it didn’t, so Marquette wraps up non-conference play for the year with a record of 6-4 with two losses to ranked teams and another in the first weekend of the season to a team earning preseason top 25 votes. Not terrible, not when there were so many questions about this team in August.

Julia Hanson led Minnesota in kills in this match, but Marquette held her to .225 hitting as they limited the Gophers to .265 as a team. Natalie Ring was MU’s best offensive weapon, or at least their most productive, with 18 kills on .217 hitting. Hattie Bray had 12 kills on .308 hitting, and Elena Radeff made the most of her 17 swings with seven kills on .353 hitting. Isabela Haggard had 38 assists and got to a double-double on 12 digs. She had to settle for second on the team there as Adriana Studer had 18.

How about some highlights, courtesy of GoMarquette.com and FS1?

Up Next: I mentioned non-conference play was over, so yup, it’s time for Big East action. That starts this weekend with Providence and UConn coming to the McGuire Center on Friday and Saturday respectively as this homestand continues. First serve against the Friars is scheduled for 7pm Central on ESPN+, while the match against the Huskies will start at 6pm on ESPN+ as well. Providence moved to 9-4 on the year with a 2-1 weekend in a tournament hosted by Tulane this weekend, while UConn is 9-1 after beating Sacred Heart on Sunday for their fifth straight victory.