It took only five points Butler volleyball head coach Kyle Shondell to throw his notebook on the taraflex mat and hang his head low.
One look at Marquette’s start and it becomes clear why.
Natalie Ring kill, 1-0. Bulldogs attack error, 2-0. Two Keira Schmidt kills — the latter coming after Butler played what would have been a service error — split by Emma Parks’ first of the night, 5-0.
Makes a little more sense now, right?
It was theme all Saturday night for the Golden Eagles, who would score another — a Ring ace — before the Bulldogs got their first point of the match.
By the end, having fully rinsed the previous evening’s disappointing five-set loss, Marquette swept Butler 25-15, 25-20, 25-9.
“At the beginning of the game, our plan was to send them home in three and just put them down, put them away,” Schmidt said. “We did keep up the attitude throughout all three sets.”
Unlike the night before, which took more than two hours, the Golden Eagles were in-and-out-of the Al McGuire Center in only one hour and 15 minutes. Unlike the night before, in which the blue & gold’s inconsistent offense ended with a .186 hitting percentage, they hit .286. Unlike the night before, Marquette’s opponent hit negative (-0.032).
“When we’re making teams pay for hitting into us, and they’re not getting away with cheap kills, then it forces them to have to really try to be perfect,” Marquette head coach Tom Mendoza said. “And that’s a great way to force teams to be uncomfortable.”
Marquette was led by none-other than Ring — because of course it was — who finished with 12 kills on .346 hitting. A convocation of Golden Eagles were right behind her, starting with Hattie Bray (7), followed by Schmidt and Parks (5).
Marquette went on to win the opening frame with no resistance, but Butler put up a little more in the second, fending off four frame points before the Golden Eagles took it 25-20.
In the third set, though, Marquette looked like it did in the first — but more.
The Golden Eagles went up 11-0 before the Bulldogs put a point on the board, and held a 14-2 lead when the visitors called their second and final timeout.
When holding that 12-point lead, Marquette hit .300 in the frame while Butler was at -0.438. When the set ended 25-9, the Golden Eagles’ largest winning margin in a frame this season, the two teams’ hitting percentages were .200 and -0.258 respectively.
“Amazing,” Schmidt said about the margin. “Very happy about that. I didn’t know.”
Now the Golden Eagles head to Washington D.C. to face Georgetown Friday evening at 6 p.m. CST.
“We struck these strung three sets together,” Mendoza said. “Now, hopefully we can start stringing multiple matches together, playing at a high level.”
This article was written by Jack Albright. He can be reached at jack.albright@marquette.edu or on Twitter/X @JackAlbrightMU.