Volleyball faces St. John's Friday in BIG EAST semis

Match Notes (PDF)

MILWAUKEE – The Marquette University women's volleyball team has earned the No. 2 seed in the Midwest Division and will face East No. 1 seed St. John's in the semifinals of the BIG EAST Championship, presented by JEEP, on Friday at 1:30 p.m. Central time at D.J. Sokol Arena in Omaha, Nebraska.

The semifinals will stream on the BIG EAST Digital Network presented by SoFi. Creighton and UConn will play in the first semifinal at 11 a.m. CT prior to Marquette's contest against the Red Storm.

The tournament final will be played on April 3 on 12:30 p.m. ET/11:30 a.m. CT and air live on FS1.

The Golden Eagles (9-3, 4-2 BIG EAST) have been in a COVID-related pause since their March 6 match at Butler and will make their second trek to Omaha this season. The Golden Eagles went 1-1 in their previous trip to D.J. Sokol Arena on Feb. 5-6 with a five-set loss and a 3-0 sweep over then-No. 19 Creighton.

Graduate transfer Taylor Wolf has paced the Marquette offense this season as both a right-side hitter and setter. Wolf leads the squad with 2.80 kills per set while hitting .259 and sits second on the team with 4.84 assists and 3.05 digs per set. Fellow graduate student Savannah Rennie has also made her impact felt in her first season in Milwaukee, hitting .325 with over two kills and nearly one block per set (0.98).

As a team, the Golden Eagles are hitting .216 on the season and all three of their losses have come in five sets. MU led 2-1 in each of their last two losses against Creighton on Feb. 5 and Butler on March 5.

The Red Storm (10-3, 6-2 BIG EAST) captured the top seed in the BIG EAST - East Division and have won each of their last five matches since a March 10 loss to Villanova in Queens. St. John's has three players averaging over 3.30 kills per set, led by Rachele Rastelli with 4.23 kills and a .353 attack percentage. Rastelli also has 42 blocks on the year (0.88 per set) and is second on the roster to BIG EAST No. 2 Ariadni Kathariou's 54 (1.20/set).

St. John's leads the conference in hitting percentage (.256), assists (13.29) and kills (13.92) and is third in blocks (2.20). Efrosini Alexakou is second only to Rastelli in kills among BIG EAST players with 4.18, while setter Tiziana Baumrukova leads the league with 11.67 assists per frame.

The Golden Eagles are 18-6 all-time against St. John's and two of the last four meetings have come in BIG EAST tournament play. The Red Storm upset the Golden Eagles, 3-1, in the 2019 title match on MU's home court, and Marquette was able to claim a 3-1 win over SJU in the 2018 semis in Omaha.

The 2018 tournament was the last hosted by Creighton and the Golden Eagles fell in four sets to the Bluejays on their home court. This year marks the fourth time CU has hosted the league tournament, following events at D.J. Sokol Arena in 2013 and 2015 in addition to 2018. Marquette claimed its lone league tournament title in 2013 with 3-1 wins over Butler in the semifinals and the Jays in the title match. MU also lost in five to CU at Sokol Arena in the 2015 semis.

Should the Golden Eagles advance to the final with a win over SJU, they would face either the host Bluejays or UConn.

Creighton took two matches from Xavier this past weekend to earn the Midwest Division's No. 1 seed with a 7-1 conference record. Since its loss to MU on Feb. 6, the Jays are 6-1 win the lone loss coming 3-1 at Kansas State on March 20 in a non-conference matchup. MU is 5-20 all-time against Creighton.

UConn, who replaced Providence due to COVID issues on Tuesday afternoon, is 4-6 overall and 4-4 in BIG EAST action. The Huskies defeated East division No. 1 seed St. John's on Feb. 25 and claimed a pair of match wins over Seton Hall on March 26-27 to close out their regular season. They had a total of eight matches canceled and played just one match, Jan. 30, prior to their BIG EAST opener on Feb. 25, against the Red Storm.

The Golden Eagles are 6-3 all-time against UConn overall and 5-3 in BIG EAST play. MU has won the last three meetings against the Huskies (2010-12) by 3-1 margins.

Keep up with the Marquette University women's volleyball program through social media by following on Twitter (@MarquetteVB) and Instagram (@MarquetteVB) and 'liking' on Facebook (/MarquetteVolleyball).