Despite the postseason being less than a week away, Serena volleyball coach Jennifer Shugrue felt her team needed to switch gears.

“We changed things up and are going without Aubrey Duffy as a libero in our rotation. She’s playing all the way around,” Shugrue said. “We tried this out at the Seneca Tournament last weekend and the girls like it and have adapted well to the change.”

The Huskers (19-10-1) used solid service runs midway through each set and then held off late rallies from Marquette (10-13) in each to post a 25-19, 25-21 victory at Bader Gymnasium on Wednesday night four their fourth consecutive victory.

Serena was led by Duffy (six kills, seven digs, three assists), Anna Hjerpe (12 kills, five digs, an ace), Rebekah Shugrue (19 assists, nine digs, two kills, two aces), Kendall Whiteaker (three kills, four digs) and Trinity Weber (four digs, two aces, a kill).

“Aubrey is a fantastic defender that can hit, so we wanted to give her that opportunity,“ coach Shugrue said. ”The only question was would our defense suffer with the change, and it hasn’t, and in fact I think we may be a stronger defense team than we were before.

“We were able to put together a few runs there in each set to push out to a nice lead, but each time Marquette came right back. We did a good job of staying mentally strong through it all.”

Marquette led the opening set 11-8 before two kills by Duffy, one by Whiteaker and a Weber ace helped give the visitors a 16-11 lead. A three-point run by Marquette’s Greysyn Carrier, which included a kill and block from Kelsey Cuchra and a kill by Ava Offerman, and later a block by Taylor Gamons closed the gap to 22-19. But from there a winning swing by Hjerpe and a pair of Cusaders hitting errors ended the set.

“The change really didn’t affect me as far as spot or rotation, but I to feel like the switch is a good thing for us,” Hjerpe said. “With Aubrey playing all around, it gives us another hitter which is great for us.

“Rebekah was very good tonight, and she has been all season. She always makes the right decisions and tonight she stayed with who was hot just for the right time and then switched it up.

“We are playing with a lot of confidence right now as a team. We’re in a nice groove.”

With the second set tied, the Huskers scored 11 of the next 12 points to run to a 18-8 advantage. The hosts chipped away with Kinley Rick, Cuchra and Lucy McGrath recording kills to cut Serena’s lead to 23-18.

McGrath’s two kills made it 24-21 before Hjerpe’s cross-court winner end the match.

Rick led Marquette with eight kills and 12 assists, with McGrath adding six kills, Gamons four, and Cuchra three. Gamons and Cuchra each had three blocks. Carissa Blood posted a team-best 12 digs, followed by Emily Ryan-Adair (10) and Hailey Abbott (6), while Carrier had 11 assists.

“(Serena) served really well and used the shoots to the corners well,“ Marquette coach Mindy McConnaughhay said. ”I thought we blocked well and played pretty good defense. I’d like to see us transition from defense to offense a little quicker and we had a few too many uncharacteristic hitting errors, but overall, I felt like we played well.

“I think we allowed a big run in each set, but both times we fought back which was good to see. At times this season we’d have let those sets get away from us, but we’ve really matured as the season has gone along and have gotten better at keeping our composure.

“It’s not the outcome we wanted, but we did a lot of good things that we can hopefully build on.”

Both teams are back in action on Thursday with Serena hosting Gardner-South Wilmington, while Marquette is at Roanoke-Benson to close out the Tri-County Conference schedule.