It took Marquette volleyball one set to work out its kinks.
But once the Golden Eagles (8-4, 2-0 Big East) did — with more precise hitting and setting, and far cleaner receiving — there was nothing to stop them from sweeping the UConn Huskies (11-3, 0-2) 25-22, 25-16, 25-18 Saturday night at the Al McGuire Center.
“Our offense looked way more comfortable than it did last night,” Marquette head coach Tom Mendoza said. “Our rhythm looked a lot better from our second-to-third contact. So that was allowing us to side out even when we weren’t as focused defensively or had those service errors in the first set.”
The offense was led by Natalie Ring, who posted her prescribed 15 kills on .394 hitting. Behind her came a long line of teammates, led by Elena Radeff’s 10 kills. Emma Parks and Hattie Bray both posted seven, Keira Schmidt finished with three and even setter Isabela Haggard got in five.
By the end of the match, Marquette had 16 more kills (47-31), nine more assists (36-27) and four more digs (30-26) than UConn, also hitting .376, nearly double the Huskies .191.
The start of the match did not pan out with that level of domination for long, though.
The Golden Eagles’ early 10-4 lead — which prompted an also early Huskies timeout — was erased as soon as UConn hitters not named Emma Werkmeister started turning swings into kills.
After the Huskies began sharing the wealth, they kept it close enough to prompt Tom Mendoza use both his timeouts.The final of the two came as his team sat one point from the win, but after UConn scored two straight to cut its deficit to 24-22. There wasn’t enough defense to stop a third set point, though, and Radeff ended the frame with her third kill.
After that, with those kinks worked out, there was nothing stopping the Golden Eagles.
UConn used both timeouts before Marquette reached 15 points in the second, and couldn’t bring the frame back to within 10 points until a late, inconsequential 4-0 run meant the Golden Eagles won 25-16.
Marquette hit. 419 compared to UConn’s .121, and the blue & gold saw a bevy of names pop up in the kill column.
The third set was very similar — all the way down to both of the Huskies’ timeouts being burned early; Marquette led 13-7 when UConn called its second and final of the frame. The only difference was the Huskies’ second-set late offensive burst didn’t exist in the third, and the Golden Eagles closed the match 25-18.
“If we let them out of any of those rotations, they side out and the game stays close. And if we buckle down, we feel like we can rattle off points in any rotation,” Mendoza said on winning frames comfortably.
“So that’s something we’re trying to get better at.”
Marquette now has the lone team picked ahead of it in the Big East preseason poll — which also happens to be where Mendoza served as an assistant — No. 16 Creighton up next on the schedule.
The Bluejays come to Al McGuire Center Thursday at 6 p.m. CST in a nationally televised match on FS1.
This article was written by Jack Albright. He can be reached at jack.albright@marquette.edu or on Twitter/X @JackAlbrightMU.