Golden Eagles overcome adversity en route to history – Marquette Wire

Marquette volleyball has achieved its goal.

Each year the team aims to achieve something that has never been done before in its 50 years of existence. And even though they didn’t win their fourth straight Big East regular season title or their first conference tournament championship, the Golden Eagles still made history.

Her Sweet 16 secured victory over No. 4 seed Utah They won a Round of 32 game for the first time on the road Friday night at the Jon M. Huntsman Center in Salt Lake City. Marquette had already made it to the second weekend twice (2018 and 2022), but both births came at the Al McGuire Center.

“We were able to reach the Sweet 16 my freshman year,” the redshirt sophomore fullback said Natalie Ring said. “But the opportunity to go out there and cause some excitement to make it there is pretty awesome. And I think it’s just a testament to this group and what we’ve been through and what we can accomplish.”

Here are some notes from the weekend:

The experienced Golden Eagles remain unbeaten in five sets

On Friday night, Marquette made true the saying that history isn’t easy.

With a lead of two sets to nil, it looked like the Golden Eagles would only need three sets to advance. But after a not-so-close third frame and a fourth frame that was so close but still so far away, it was first to 15, the winner has to have it all.

Previously, Marquette had three five-set matches to look back on and gain experience. The first game was at Western Kentucky, where the Golden Eagles won 15-10. The second was at home against DePaul when Marquette scored Reverse sweep with extra points, 16-14. And the third and final game took place at the Seton Hall Pirates, which the Golden Eagles also won 15:9.

When Utah tied the game 2-2, Marquette went into the bracket with no fear.

“‘Come on, we’ve got this in the bag. We do this. This is our game. “We know what we can do against them,” middle blocker Hattie Bray said of the mentality before the fifth set.

And just like the other three times, the senior-laden Golden Eagles walked away with a win.

“I said after (the fourth sentence) – we lost the lead; We were up 22-20 and lost it – and I said a young team would be desperate, a young team would be disappointed, a young team wouldn’t be able to recover. But that’s not this group,” head coach Ryan Theis said after the win.

“And if that senior group was going to go out, we said that wouldn’t be the case tonight. They did it, they deserved it, just an impressive performance from so many of our players against a really good team.”

Marquette rebounds after losing Foti

Ella Fotis Teammates describe her as a “spark plug.”

The senior on the right is the first to start screaming and the last to stop. When she gets going, the team gets going.

When Foti went down with an ankle injury midway through the final set, her calm, sullen demeanor was barely noticeable.

“I saw her sitting at the end of the bench, sort of staring into nothingness. And I’m sure it’s occurred to her that her career could be over,” Theis said. “And the least selfish child in the world, right? But I just think she was distracted at that moment.”

But Theis knew how she – and the entire Marquette team – could score the most important points of the season.

“So we actually talked about trying to win this game for them and ‘playing fearlessly like Foti,'” he said. “And all of a sudden she stood up, (yelled), ‘Come on,’ and just jumped into the group and just gave it everything she could.” And then the team jumped into it and tried to win it for them.”

The broadcast confirmed that Foti is currently in action ahead of Marquette’s game against Penn State on Friday.

“She’s moving,” Theis said. “I won’t know until Friday. I’m glad we’re playing Friday instead of Thursday this week. Hopefully this helps.”

It’s business as usual for Bray

There was no guarantee Bray would be healthy to play the first weekend.

While she started in Marquette’s Big East tournament championship game against Creighton, the ankle injury she suffered in the regular-season finale at DePaul still limited her opportunities to practice.

But then Thursday rolled over and Bray’s ankle was healthy enough to start, and she finished with nine kills and the only solo block of the game before following up with another nine kills 24 hours later.

Bray said she has taken it easy in training since her injury, but games are a different story

“Once game time comes, the adrenaline goes up and all the pain goes away,” she said. “It’s pretty normal.”

ThThis article was written by Jack Albright. He can be reached at (email protected) or on Twitter/X @JackAlbrightMU.