VB concludes regular season at Xavier and DePaul

Match Notes (PDF)

MILWAUKEE – The Marquette University women's volleyball team heads to Xavier and DePaul to close out regular season action this weekend.

MU faces Xavier at 5 p.m. Central time on Friday at Cintas Center in Cincinnati before traveling to Chicago for a noon match against the Blue Demons at McGrath-Phillips Arena.

Friday's game against the Musketeers airs live on FloCollege with Mike Schmaltz on the call, while Sunday's contest in Chicago features Peter Ferreri and Noah Coffman on Marquee Sports Network.

Following this weekend's matches, the Golden Eagles head to Omaha, Nebraska over Thanksgiving week for the BIG EAST Championship Presented by JEEP at D.J. Sokol Arena. MU has received a bye into the semifinals and plays its first match against a yet-to-be-determined opponent at 5 p.m. CT in the match opposite tournament-host Creighton.

MARQUETTE (20-7, 14-2 BIG EAST)

MU setter Yadhira Anchante earned her second BIG EAST Setter of the Week honor on Monday after sweeps of Georgetown and Seton Hall last weekend. She posted 13.50 assists per set as MU hit .350 and averaged 17.00 kills per frame. She had her team-best 19th double double of the season, on Sunday against SHU with 12 digs and 47 assists, the highest mark in a three-set match of her 87 game NCAA career.
Anchante has helped MU hit a combined .265 this season and averages 10.35 assists per frame and a team- and career-best 3.29 digs.
Anchante became the fourth player in program history to reach 3,000 career assists in the Nov. 3 match against St. John's and is currently fourth all-time at MU with 3,155 in 87 matches.
Middle blocker Hattie Bray was also named to the league honor roll on Monday after hitting .611 against GU and SHU with 4.17 kills and 5.08 points per set. In BIG EAST play this year, Bray leads the conference with a hitting mark of .423 (142-24-279), nearly 20 points ahead of CU's Ava Martin.
MU secured a spot in the six-team BIG EAST tournament field with its 12th league victory on Nov. 6 at Butler. The league championship begins Wednesday, Nov. 27 in Omaha, Nebraska and the top two regular season finishers receive a bye into the Friday, Nov. 29 semifinals. MU will play opposite Creighton in the second semifinal at 5 p.m. CT.
Prior to the Nov. 1 loss to No. 5 Creighton, the Golden Eagles were on a 12-match winning streak following their first loss to CU on Oct. 1.
Outside hitter Aubrey Hamilton leads the Golden Eagles with 3.45 kills per set in all matches with 2.29 digs and 0.60 blocks.
Hamilton became the 14th player to reach 1,000 in a MU uniform in the Oct. 18 win over DePaul with a career-high 28 kills.
Ring is now second on the squad with 2.57 kills per set in all matches on a hitting line of 175-45-454 (.286).
Middle blocker Carsen Murray, MU's all-time leader in career hitting percentage, leads the BIG EAST this season with a mark of .388 in all matches.
Murray (399 career blocks) is one block away from becoming just the fifth player in MU history to reach 400.
MU head coach Ryan Theis posted the 250th win of his Marquette career in the Nov. 3 match against St. John's. Wednesday's win at Butler was his 150th in BIG EAST action and he has 395 wins in his NCAA Division I head coaching career.
Senior libero Samantha Naber averages 3.55 digs per set to rank eighth among players in BIG EAST action.
MU is ranked 24th in the NCAA's seventh RPI ranking of the season, which includes matches through Nov. 17.
Marquette began conference play with the seventh-toughest strength of schedule in the country according to the NCAA Division I Massey Ratings.
Eight of MU's 11 nonconference matches have come against squads that competed in the 2023 NCAA tournament.

XAVIER (10-16, 8-8 BIG EAST)

The Musketeers have gone 4-4 since being swept by MU on Oct. 20 in Milwaukee. Last weekend, they beat Providence, 3-1, before a 3-0 loss at UConn.
Xavier enters the weekend tied with Villanova in fifth place at 8-8 in the league standings and can finish anywhere from fifth to seventh depending on this weekend's results. A seventh-place finish would eliminate XU from the conference tournament.
Emma Grace leads Xavier with 3.09 kills per set while Anna Taylor (2.88) and Margo Kemp (2.39) each average over 2.30 per frame.
Senior setter Logan Flaugh sits between Creighton's Kendra Wait and MU's Anchante on the BIG EAST leaderboard with 10.57 assists per set, and a mark of 10.89 in league play.
Xavier sits in the middle of the BIG EAST in kills (12.83) and assists (11.88) and is hitting a combined .204 this season.
XU is led by ninth-year head coach Christy Pfeffenberger.

SERIES HISTORY WITH XU:

Marquette is 21-9 all-time against Xavier and has won each of the last 11 meetings since a loss to the Musketeers in the 2016 BIG EAST semifinals in Indianapolis.
MU is 16-4 against Xavier since the Musketeers entered the BIG EAST for the 2013 campaign.
The Golden Eagles allowed 47 Xavier points in a 25-13, 25-20, 25-14 sweep earlier this season at the Al McGuire Center. MU hit a combined .355 in the contest, including a mark of .522 in the first frame. Hamilton and Ring (.522; 13-1-23) each led MU with 13 kills, while Bray hit .615 (8-0-13) with three blocks.

DEPAUL (18-10, 10-6 BIG EAST)

The Blue Demons enter the weekend tied with UConn for third in the BIG EAST standings at 10-6, but currently hold the tiebreaker over the Huskies thanks to a pair of wins against them.
DePaul has secured at least a top six finish and a berth into the league tournament thanks to tiebreakers.
DePaul is 5-4 in its last nine matches since a loss to MU on Oct. 18 in Milwaukee. Last weekend it swept UConn and fell on the road to Providence in four.
Graduate libero Rachel Krasowski leads the BIG EAST with a 4.84 digs per set average, as does outside hitter Jill Pressley with 4.29 kills per frame. In just league contests, those numbers are 4.71 digs and 4.24 kills, respectively.
The Blue Demons rank in the top three in the league in kills (13.89), assists (13.16) and digs (16.57) per set.
DePaul runs a 6-2 offense with setters Ashley Cudimat (5.53 a/s; 2.45 d/s) and Amanda Saeger (5.44 a/s; 2.04 d/s).
In addition to Pressly, the Blue Demons are led offensively by Audrey Klemp's 3.18 kills per frame.

SERIES HISTORY WITH DPU:

Marquette holds a 44-29 record against the Blue Demons and has won the last 27 matches dating back to the 2009 campaign.
Since both teams joined the BIG EAST Conference for the 2005 campaign, MU has won 30 of 31 matches.
In the match earlier this season in Milwaukee on Oct. 18, MU rallied for a 3-2 win in a reverse sweep. MU dropped the first two sets, 25-20, before rallying to win 25-16, 25-23, 16-14. Hamilton led all players with 28 kills, while Anchante had 53 assists and MU hit .228 to DePaul's .192. Hamiton's kill total pushed her over 1,000 in her MU career.
MU swept DePaul at home last season and claimed a 3-1 win in Chicago. In the road match, Ella Foti served as MU's 5-1 setter with Anchante out and tallied a career-best 47 assists and 18 digs.
The series began in 1982.

BIG EAST PLAY REACHES 20 YEARS

The 2024 campaign is MU's 20th in the BIG EAST Conference and 50th overall.
Marquette has won at a 76.0 percent clip (237-75) since joining the league and is 152-31 (.831) in BIG EAST matches under head coach Ryan Theis.
MU is 113-16 (.876) in BIG EAST play over the last seven seasons (2017-23) under Theis, including consecutive regular season league titles in 2021 (16-2), 2022 (17-1) and 2023 (16-2).
The Golden Eagles are picked to finish second in the BIG EAST Conference preseason coaches' poll and four MU student-athletes were named to the league's preseason team, led by Hamilton, a unanimous selection. Anchante, Bray and Murray also received preseason recognition.
Marquette is a three-time reigning BIG EAST regular season champion, has won four league titles overall (2013, 2021, 2022, 2023) and made its 12th NCAA tournament appearance in the last 13 seasons last fall (MU's lone NCAA miss during 2020-21 was due to the tightened tournament field).

SPECIAL GROUP OF SENIORS

Middle blocker Carsen Murray and right-side hitter Ella Foti have been with the program for five seasons, while outside hitter Jenna Reitsma and defensive specialists Samanatha Naber and Jadyn Garrison have been at MU four years. Setter Yadhira Anchante and outside hitter Aubrey Hamilton each came in as transfers prior to the 2022 campaign and are in their third seasons at MU.
Seniors by the Numbers:
- 3 – BIG EAST Championships
- 3 – NCAA tournament appearances
- 1 – Trip to the Sweet 16 (2022)
- 4 – AVCA All-Region selections
- 7 – All-BIG EAST selections
- 20 – BIG EAST All-Academic Team selections
- 17,037 – NCAA regular season indoor attendance record and most-attended women's sporting event in state history (Sept. 13, 2023, at Fiserv Forum)
- 29 – Program-record single-season win total (2022)
- 17 – Program-record BIG EAST win total (2022)
- 708 – Class accounts for nearly 700 matches played
- 106 – Wins over the last five seasons
- 29 – Weeks ranked in the AVCA Coaches' Poll over the last five seasons
- 13th – Highest AVCA Postseason Poll ranking in program history (2022)
- 12th – Highest AVCA Preseason Poll ranking in program history (2023)
- 72 – Weeks receiving votes in the AVCA Coaches' Poll over the last five seasons
- 34 – Straight weeks in the top 35 of the NCAA RPI ranking over the last four years
- 10th – Highest ranking in the NCAA's weekly RPI (Oct. 24, 2022)

MU ON MILESTONE WATCH

Kills (1,000): Hamilton at 1,124 in MU career, Reitsma (860), Murray (765), Bray (727)
Digs (1,000): Anchante (918), Reitsma (893)
Assists (3,000): Anchante (3,155)
Blocks (400): Murray (399), Bray (258)
Aces (100): Reitsma (142), Foti (91)

MU ADDS HAGGARD, KING AND SCHMIDT FOR 2025

Marquette announced the addition of Mari King, Keira Schmidt and Isabela Haggard for the fall of 2025. Haggard (No. 65) and Schmidt (No. 86) are both ranked as national top-100 prospects in the class of 2025 by PrepDig and are the fifth-ranked players in their respective home states. King is ranked 18th in Florida and eighth at her position in the state.
All three plan to arrive on campus in January and will have four years of NCAA eligibility remaining.
King is a 5-foot-10 outside hitter from Trinity Christian Academy in Jacksonville, Florida and the state's all-time career kills leader.
Haggard is a 5-foot-11 setter from Paul Laurence Dunbar High School in Lexington, Kentucky who is also a state champion gymnast and horizontal jumper in track and field.
Schmidt, a 6-foot-3 middle blocker, is a two-time Minnesota Star Tribune all-state selection at Eagan High School and a former teammate of current MU right-side hitter Sienna Ifill with Northern Lights.

2024 MARKS MU'S 50TH SEASON

The 2024 campaign marks MU's 50th season of competition and 20th season in the BIG EAST Conference.
The first season of women's volleyball at Marquette was played during the 1975-76 academic year and MU has grown into a perennial NCAA tournament participant and four-time BIG EAST champion.
The Golden Eagles have qualified for each of the last 12 NCAA tournaments with full 64-team fields and have advanced to the NCAA Second Round seven times and own a pair of NCAA Regional Semifinal appearances.

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).