Volleyball travels to Seton Hall and St. John's

Match Notes (PDF)

MILWAUKEE – The Marquette University women's volleyball team heads to the East Coast this weekend for matches at Seton Hall and St. John's on Friday and Saturday afternoon, respectively.

Friday's match against the Pirates at Walsh Gymnasium in South Orange, New Jersey is slated for 5 p.m. Central time and airs live on FloSports. ESPN+ will provide coverage for Saturday's 4 p.m. contest with the Red Storm at Carnesecca Arena in Queens, New York.

This weekend begins a stretch of eight of the next 10 contests on the road for the Golden Eagles, whose lone home weekend over the next month is Oct. 27-28 against Providence and UConn.

The Golden Eagles (10-7, 6-0 BIG EAST) sit 17th in the NCAA women's volleyball RPI rankings released on Oct. 8. MU was 24th in the first rankings released last week and jumped seven spots with wins over DePaul and Creighton, then the No. 17 team in the rankings.

HAMILTON ELEVATES HER PLAY

Outside hitter Aubrey Hamilton leads MU this season with 232 kills (3.74 per set) on .282 hitting and was named the BIG EAST Offensive Player of the Week on Monday after sweeps of DePaul and then-No. 15 Creighton with 4.00 kills per set on .364 hitting. It is the fourth-straight week that Hamilton has earned weekly honors.
In the 11 matches (36 sets) since Hamilton was held to a -.042 (5-6-24) hitting percentage against then-No. 9 Pitt on Sept. 8, she is hitting .350 (150-31-340) with 4.17 kills per set, 11 service aces, 58 digs and 23 blocks.
Hamilton is hitting an astronomical .439 through six conference matches on nearly 160 swings (78-9-157). MU middle blocker Carsen Murray leads the league at .475 (34-5-61) in conference play and is hitting .370 overall (72-18-146), also best in the BIG EAST.

BRAY AND KUSHNER STEP UP DEFENSIVELY

Middle blocker Hattie Bray earned BIG EAST Defensive Player of the Week honors on Monday after averaging 1.50 blocks and 3.00 kills per set while hitting .343 against DPU and CU. She was part of a MU defense that limited the Blue Demons and Bluejays to an attack mark of just .060.
Earlier this season, Bray's 11 blocks against Villanova on Sept. 22 were the most for a MU player in a three-set match since former AVCA All-America outside hitter Kimberly Todd posted 11 against San Francisco on Sept. 15, 2006 at the Al McGuire Center.
Graduate libero Sarah Kushner was also key in last week's two sweeps and was named to the weekly honor roll after averaging 4.67 digs per set. Kushner is in her first season at libero after spending her four seasons at Illinois State as an outside hitter.

BIG EAST DOMINANCE

The Golden Eagles are 6-0 to begin BIG EAST play for the fifth time overall, and the second season in a row. MU is the league's only unbeaten team in conference play.
The Golden Eagles are hitting a league-best .314 in conference play and are limiting opponents to .103 through six matches. MU's offensive unit is hitting nearly 100 points higher than St. John's (.224) in the No. 2 spot, while Marquette is also averaging a conference-best 14.00 kills and 12.47 assists per set.
MU leads the BIG EAST in blocks per set (2.66) in conference matches and is second in service aces (1.79) and third in digs (16.53).
Marquette has won at a 75.0 percent clip (213-71) since joining the BIG EAST in 2005 and is 128-27 (.826) in BIG EAST matches under head coach Ryan Theis.
MU is 89-12 (.881) in BIG EAST play over the last seven seasons (2017-23) under Theis, including consecutive regular season league titles in 2021 (16-2) and 2022 (17-1).
Marquette was picked to win the BIG EAST in the preseason coaches' poll with seven first place votes. Creighton received four.

SCHEDULE ONE OF NATION'S TOUGHEST

MU has played one of the nation's 10 toughest nonconference schedules according to the Massey Ratings.
MU has nine matches this season against teams currently ranked in the AVCA Coaches Poll (No. 1 Wisconsin, No. 5 Oregon, No. 8 Pitt, No. 10 Tennessee, No. 15 Purdue, No. 16 Kansas, No. 17 Creighton (twice) and No. 18 Dayton. MU is four spots outside of the rankings with 53 total points, while Western Kentucky, Marquette's first opponent this season, is one spot outside the top 25 with 104 points.

SETON HALL (8-9, 2-4 BIG EAST)

The Pirates won five in a row after a season-opening loss to New Mexico but have lost each of their last four matches against BIG EAST Conference foes.
SHU opened conference play with sweeps of Providence and UConn.
Outside hitter Madeline Matheny has taken a team-high 417 swings and leads the Pirates with 2.94 kills per set (153 total) on a hitting mark of .225. Perri Lucas (2.17), Jenna Walsh (2.64) and Bianca Bucciarelli (2.24) each also average over two kills per frame.
In conference matches, SHU is second to last in the BIG EAST in hitting percentage (.153), kills (11.19), assists (10.19) and blocks (1.86).
The Pirates lead the BIG EAST with 45 service aces in conference play (2.14 per set).
Head coach Shannon Thompson is in her second season at Seton Hall.

SERIES HISTORY WITH SETON HALL:

Marquette leads the all-time series with the Pirates, 22-5, and all 27 meetings have come since MU joined the BIG EAST for the 2005 season.
The Golden Eagles have won each of the last 13 meetings.
MU is 11-2 against Seton Hall at Walsh Gymnasium.
Marquette swept SHU in both meetings last season. The Pirates earned just 36 total points and hit -.032 in the last match on Oct. 21, 2022 in Milwaukee. MU hit .367 in the win.

ST. JOHN'S (13-5, 5-1 BIG EAST)

The Red Storm enter the weekend second in the BIG EAST with just one conference loss, a sweep at the hands of Creighton on Sept. 29 in Omaha.
Offensively, the Red Storm rank second in the league in hitting percentage (.224), kills (13.32) and assists (12.26) per set in conference matches. SJU also ranks as an upper echelon league team in blocks (fourth, 2.21/set), service aces (fourth, 1.58/set) and opponent hitting percentage (.118) but ranks ninth with 13.68 digs per set.
Sophomore Erin Jones leads SJU with 3.56 kills and 2.09 digs per set on .245 hitting. Giorgia Walther leads the Red Storm with 564 attacks this year but has connected at just a .128 mark and 3.11 kills per set.
Setter Wiktoria Kowalczyk has a league-best 28 service aces on the year and her 9.18 assists per set average ranks sixth in the conference.
Freshman libero Rashanny Solano Smith was named the BIG EAST Freshman of the Week on Monday for the second time this season. She recorded 6.16 digs per set in sweeps of Butler and Xavier and is second in the BIG EAST in conference matches with 5.37 digs per frame.
St. John's began the year with a 3-1 win over Ole Miss in Fort Myers, Florida and entered BIG EAST play at 8-4.
St. John's is 5-1 in conference play, its best start to league play since 2008 when it captured a third-consecutive BIG EAST regular season crown.
Head coach Joanne Persico is in her 30th season at St. John's.
St. John's is the only other team outside of Marquette and Creighton to claim a BIG EAST title since the league reformed prior to the 2013 campaign. The Red Storm defeated both MU and CU on its way to a 2019 league tournament crown at the Al McGuire Center.

SERIES HISTORY WITH ST. JOHN'S:

Marquette is 23-7 all-time against the Red Storm and all 30 meetings have come since MU joined the BIG EAST for the 2005 season. SJU won the first three meetings in the series, but MU has won 23 of the last 27 contests.
Marquette has swept each of the last four meetings since a 3-1 loss to SJU in the BIG EAST tournament final in 2019. Prior to that contest, MU had won seven in a row.
MU's last loss to St. John's at Carnesecca Arena was a five-set decision on Nov. 14, 2015 in Theis' second season at MU.
Marquette is 11-4 against the Red Storm in Queens.
MU swept SJU in both matches last season, including a career-high nine blocks from Carsen Murray in the last meeting on Oct. 22, 2022 in Milwaukee. Marquette had 13.0 team blocks in the win.

MATCHES AGAINST UW AND OREGON HIGHLIGHT VOLLEYBALL GROWTH

The Golden Eagles and Badgers played in front of 17,037 fans at Fiserv Forum, a NCAA regular season indoor attendance record, and the most spectators to ever attend a women's sporting event in the state of Wisconsin.
The UW match on Sept. 13 attracted 146,000 total-average viewers over 160 minutes on FS1, while MU's match on Sept. 17 against No. 7 Oregon recorded 325,000 total-average viewers over 96 minutes on an NFL Sunday. Nielsen data courtesy of SportsTVRatings.com.

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