Volleyball resumes action at Illinois State's Red & White Invitational

Match Notes (PDF)

MILWAUKEE – The No. 25 Marquette University women's volleyball team resumes non-conference action on Sept. 3-5 in Normal, Illinois at Illinois State University's Red & White Invitational.

The Golden Eagles (3-0) will face the University of Illinois-Chicago at 7 p.m. on Friday before a pair of 1 p.m. matchups with Ohio and the host-Redbirds on Saturday and Sunday, respectively.

The match against Illinois State will be broadcast live through ESPN+ and live statistics will also be available through StatBroadcast for all three MU contests. Live video of Marquette's neutral site matches against the Flames and Bobcats can be found on the Marquette Athletics YouTube channel.

No. 25 MARQUETTE (3-0): Marquette claimed a tournament title in the 2021 Hawaiian Airlines Rainbow Wahine Classic over the weekend with wins over Texas A&M, Hawai'i and Fairfield. Graduate student Taylor Wolf claimed most valuable player honors and was named BIG EAST Conference Offensive Player of the Week on Monday, while Wolf was joined on the all-tournament team by Savannah Rennie and Hannah Vanden Berg.

Wolf paced a MU offense that hit .310 (151-41-355) in it's first three matches and a defense that averaged over three blocks per set. The Waconia, Minnesota native leads the squad with 3.09 kills, 5.82 assists and 2.55 digs per set and nearly recorded a quadruple-double in the season opener against the Aggies with 15 kills, 24 assists, eight digs and eight blocks. Rennie hit .429 (32-8-56) in the opening weekend and led Marquette with 19 total blocks (1.73 per set).

Outside hitter Hope Werch, in her fifth season in Blue & Gold, is 24 kills from becoming the 13th Marquette player to reach 1,000 in her career.

ILLINOIS-CHICAGO (1-2): Marquette's Friday opponent went 1-2 in the opening weekend at Butler's Top Dawg Challenge with a 3-1 win over Bowling Green in the season opener and losses to Indiana and Butler. Paola Santiago (3.36 kills per set) and Martina Delucchi (3.09 k/s) each averaged over three kills in the first three matches, but the Flames hit just .173 as a team. UIC was picked to finish second in the Horizon League and return all-league selections Santiago, Delucchi, Jaclyn Oblena and Horizon League Freshman of the Year Becca Oldendorf, from a team that went 14-3 in the spring. MU assistant coach Meghan Keck was a student-athlete at UIC from 2002-03, was UIC's Female Athlete of the Year and won the NCAA Sportsmanship Award in 2004.

SERIES WITH UIC: The Golden Eagles and Flames have met 17 times previously and UIC owns a 12-5 series advantage. Marquette captured a five-set victory in the last match on Oct. 3, 2001 in Chicago.

OHIO (0-2): The Bobcats dropped both matches last weekend in a sweep at the hands of No. 4 Washington and a five-set loss to Northern Kentucky. Ohio out-hit the Huskies and Norse by a margin of .248 to .238, but had trouble with ball control, allowing 19 service aces over the weekend. Four players average at least 2.25 kills per set, led by Maggie Nedoma, who averages 3.63 kills per frame on .316 hitting. Setter Tria McLean paces the offensive attack with 10.13 assists per set. The Bobcats are led by head coach Geoff Carlston, who is in his second stint as head coach at OU after 12 seasons at Ohio State. Carlston departed Ohio in 2007 and current MU head coach Ryan Theis took the reigns of the OU program from then until 2013.

SERIES WITH OHIO: Marquette dropped its only previous meeting to Ohio in a sweep on Sept. 13, 1996.

ILLINOIS STATE (0-3): The Redbirds lost all three matches during the opening weekend in the JMU Invitational in Harrisonburg, Virginia. ISU opened the year with a 3-1 loss to VCU on Friday, was swept by High Point on Saturday afternoon and fell in four sets to tournament-host James Madison on Saturday night. The Redbirds allowed its opponents to hit .304 over the weekend and were blocked 24 times in the three contests. Tamara Otene leads the squad with 37 kills through three matches, while Sarah Kushner is not far behind with 35.

SERIES WITH ILLINOIS STATE: The Golden Eagles and Redbirds are even at two wins apiece in their all-time series. They met twice during the spring of 2021 and split the two matches at the Al McGuire Center on Jan. 22-23.

UP NEXT: Marquette hosts its first home weekend on Sept. 11-12 when No. 2 Wisconsin and reigning NCAA Champion, No. 3 Kentucky, come to the Al McGuire Center.

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).