TicketsOct. 19, 2012
MILWAUKEE - The University of Cincinnati volleyball team dropped a 3-0 (25-19, 25-18, 25-23) decision against Marquette Friday evening in Milwaukee, Wis. Junior Emily MacIntyre (Muncie, Ind./Yorktown) led the Bearcat effort with 21 digs, for a remarkable 7.00 digs/set average.
"Marquette had a game plan that they executed very well tonight" said head coach Molly Alvey. "We had a game plan that we did not execute well."
With the victory, Marquette ended its six-match drought against Cincinnati, including the Bearcats 3-2 victory over the Golden Eagles in the 2011 BIG EAST Championship semifinal round. MU also kept its perfect BIG EAST record intact at 8-0 and remain the only unbeaten team in the league.
Cincinnati (8-14, 6-3 BIG EAST) could not muster any momentum on offense, hitting a .178 attacking percentage for the match. Marquette (18-4, 8-0 BIG EAST) hit .304 and was led by Holly Mertens' 18 kills and .640 attacking clip. The Golden Eagles produced 43 kills compared to the Bearcats' 33, while out-assisting UC 42-33.
Offensively, the Bearcats were paced by senior Jordanne Scott (Indianapolis, Ind./Lawrence North) with 17 kills and a .359 hitting percentage. The 17 kills moved her into seventh on the program's all-time kills list with 1,512. Sophomore Me'Ashah Nicholson (Shiloh, Ill./Belleville Althoff) contributed a match-high four blocks.
The Bearcats fell victim to a seven-point Marquette run in the first game and were never able to recover. With the score tied at 14-14, the Golden Eagles rattled off seven straight points, including four kills by Mertens. Alvey was forced to use both of her timeouts during the run before senior Megan Turner (Ontario, N.Y./Wayne Central) stopped the bleeding with a kill to bring the score to 22-15. Cincinnati pulled to within 22-18 on a block from senior Rachel Rohlfs (Cincinnati, Ohio/Grand Valley State) but an MU service ace gave Marquette the 25-19 victory.
The story line was much the same in the second game, when again Marquette used a seven-point run to pull ahead 11-6. Kills by Scott and senior Emily Hayden (Louisville, Ky./Assumption) brought the Bearcats to within to at 14-12, but UC couldn't close the gap. A Cincinnati attacking error was the final point of the game, giving Marquette the 25-18 win and a 2-0 match advantage heading into the intermission.
Cincinnati got off to a hot start in the third game, storming out to a 9-3 lead behind two kills from Scott and an ace from MacIntyre to force a Marquette timeout. The Golden Eagles chipped away at the lead, taking advantage of several UC errors to finally tie the score at 17-17. MU took its first lead of the game at 23-22 and used two additional Cincinnati errors to end the game 25-23.
The third game of the match served as the 400th career game for Hayden, who joins Scott and senior Becca Refenes (Westland, Mich./Lutheran Westland) as the only active players to reach the milestone.
The Bearcats will be back on the court on Sun., Oct. 21 when they play BIG EAST foe Syracuse in Syracuse, N.Y. at 2 p.m.
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