Last fall, it took Marquette volleyball 14 days to hit 15 sets played.
This season? Only three.
Over the weekend, the Golden Eagles opened the Tom Mendoza era in Honolulu, Hawai’i for the 2025 Hawaiian Airlines Wahine Volleyball Classic. MU will travel back to Milwaukee 2-1 after a successful opening weekend of games and historic 79-kill weekend for senior outside hitter Natalie Ring.
Here’s how it all went down in The Aloha State:
Ring explodes for 27 kills in reverse sweep of Hawai’i
Lose the first two sets, win the next three. The Golden Eagles won the first game of the Tom Mendoza era just the way he drew it up.
After dropping the first two sets 25-27 and 17-25, MU had to dig deep in a third set that lasted 66 total points and took every ounce of effort from the Golden Eagles to fight back and avoid being swept.
After going back and forth for nearly 20 points, MU found itself down 32-31. But then Ring took over, firing home a kill to even things up at 32 and rising up for a solo block to give Marquette set point at 33-32. Graduate middle blocker Hattie Bray sealed the deal with a kill off a pass from first-year setter Isabela Haggard to give the Golden Eagles the 34-32 set win.
From there, Mendoza’s squad rode the momentum of its set three triumph, winning set four convincingly 25-18 and closing the match out with a 6-0 run to win the fifth and final frame 15-9.
Ring finished the opening night with a then-career-high 27 kills on 80 attempts, good for a .213 hitting percentage. A pair of first-year players showed out in their Marquette debuts, as middle blocker Keira Schmidt hit .692 with nine kills on 13 attacks while Haggard dished out 49 assists.
Marquette fumbles away late lead to lose in five sets against San Diego
Despite losing set one 21-25, the Golden Eagles grabbed their first set win of the night in the second frame 25-23 and then dominated the third set 25-15 to go up 2-1 on the Toreros.
After trailing for most set four en route to a 20-25 loss, MU was once again headed to a deciding fifth set.
After 17 points had gone by Marquette led 11-6, just four points away from their second win of the season. But an attack error from Ring made it 11-7 and a service ace from sophomore setter Kylie Munday trimmed MU’s lead to just three.
From there, San Diego kept scoring to reduce the Golden Eagles’ lead to one point, and then sophomore outside hitter Isabel Clark sent a kill to the floor to knot the score up at 12. Clark would go on to kill two other points and come down with a half-block on an attack from Bray, sealing the deal on a five-set victory for the Toreros, 15-13.
After never having a 20-kill performance in her entire career, Ring notched north of 20 kills for the second match in a row, finishing with a team-high 24. Two other Golden Eagles reached double digit kills, with senior outside hitter Ella Holmstrom finishing with 14 and Santa Clara transfer hitter Elena Radeff finishing with 13.
Utah State’s comeback attempt falls short as the Golden Eagles improve to 2-1
In near identical fashion to the way Saturday night’s game got to five sets, Marquette blew a 2-1 set lead to send the match to a winner-take-all fifth frame Sunday afternoon.
Ring had worked too hard all weekend to let the Golden Eagles fly out of Hawaii with a losing record, so what did she do? Put on another historic performance. After killing Marquette’s first three points of the match to tie it up at three, Ring was up to 24 kills.
Then came No. 25 to make it 13-11 MU. No. 26 came to tie the frame up at 15, sending it to extra points. Kill No. 27 evened the set up at 16 just two points later, and kill No. 28 not only helped her set a new-career-high, but it also gave Marquette an 18-17 lead.
But the biggest play of the night for Ring didn’t come in kill form, it came when she teamed up with her fellow All-Big East preseason selection Bray to send sophomore hitter Loryn Helgesen’s attack to the floor, giving the Golden Eagles the set and match, 20-18.
Bray and Ring teamed up for a combined 47 kills against the Aggies, with Bray hitting an otherworldly .679 on 28 attempts.
MU opens a 13-game homestand on Friday against Western Kentucky at 7 p.m. CST.
This story was written by Matthew Baltz. He can be reached at matthew.baltz@marquette.edu or on Twitter/X @MatthewBaltzMU.