Girls volleyball: Marquette struggles in season-opening loss to Lexington

OTTAWA – Marquette volleyball coach Mindy McConnaughhay sat on the stage at Bader Gymnasium with a blank, look of disbelief after Tuesday’s season opener against visiting Lexington, a squad the Crusaders battled but lost to last year in a Class 1A Woodland Sectional semifinal.

Marquette shook off a slow start in the opening set to close to within a couple of points before coming up short. In the second set, Lexington again jumped out to an early advantage, but this time didn’t let up to roll to a 25-17, 25-3 triumph.

“The first set we had a couple stumbles at times, and we talked about adjustments between sets,” McConnaughhay said. “I wasn’t unhappy with how we were playing and the way we fought back after a slow start in the opening 20 points or so. Lexington is a very good team, but I felt if we could pick things up a little in a couple of areas, we could win the second set and then who knows.”

Lexington jumped to first-set leads of 6-2 and 15-5, but Marquette seemed to get its footing. Three kills in the middle by Kelsey Cuchra, a winning swing each from Makayla Backos and Lilia Muffler, and an ace by Hunter Hopkins cut the Minutemen lead to 17-4. The visitors then took advantage of three straight Cru errors before closing out the set with an ace from Vivian Wright and a kill by Emma Bennett.

Lexington scored 11 of the first 14 points of the second set before Meredith Grunloh stepped to the serving line. The Minutemen junior reeled off 14 straight points, including four aces, to close out the match.

On the night Marquette had 15 hitting errors, four serving errors and committed four net violations, compared with five, one and zero for Lexington.

“The second set was just a complete mental collapse from everyone,” McConnaughhay said. “We didn’t talk, nobody took leadership, nobody stepped up. It was like on every point it was something different, either a bad serve receive, or a bad pass, or not being in the right spot, or a violation or a hitting error. I started thinking ‘What’s next?’ I took my second time out there in the second set when it was like 18 or 19 to 3 and just said to them ‘You guys have to figure this out.’ Unfortunately, they weren’t able to. When as a coach you’re just really hoping to get to five points before a set ends that’s not a good thing, but that’s where I was at. It was tough to watch.”

Marquette was led by four kills each from Avery Durdan and Cuchra. Lexington’s Avery Poppe recorded a match-high five kills, Wright five aces and Grunloh four aces.

“I can’t say I expected that,” Lexington coach Kelli Aho said. “We played Marquette last year in the sectional semifinals, and I know they have always had a tremendous program. We knew they’d come at us with middle hitters that can really put the ball down, and they showed that in the first set. I think the key was we served pretty well, and that helped keep them out of system to be able to get good sets and looks.

“I was expecting first-match jitters and having times where I might need to settle things down, but we really didn’t have that. Everything was going just right for us. We got on a run and just kept it going.”

Marquette is back in action Wednesday at Newark. Lexington returns to the court on Thursday at Calvary Christian.