For our new At the Net feature with Coach Kirsten Bernthal Booth, we would like to welcome a new sponsor to WBR– Nebraska Elite Volleyball.
Also, join us Friday night for WBR Live! at Sokol Arena as the Bluejays take on Northern Illinois in the home opener. We will be courtside for all the action. Join in or follow along
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After dropping three straight matches, the most recent being a heartbreaker to Kansas State on Tuesday, Creighton volleyball looks to bounce back playing in its own tournament, the Bluejay Invitational. This weekend, top teams Northern Illinois and Marquette come to town as well as South Dakota. WBR caught up with head coach Kirsten Bernthal Booth to talk about the seasons thus far and what to expect at the tournament this weekend.
White and Blue Review: Who has impressed you most so far?
Kirsten Berthal Booth: I think we’ve had different people play well in different matches. I don’t think there has been a consistent player through the whole time. Laurel Sanford and Megan Bober made the all-tournament team at the (Texas) A&M tournament this past weekend. They both did a lot of great things throughout the weekend. Kelli Browning was freshman of the week. She’s done some great things, especially for a new kid coming out. Julianne Mandolfo carried a lot of the load in the back row and did a good job. So it’s kind of been match to match. Heather Thorson at times has carried a lot of the load in the middle. I think one of the things we’re still working on is consistency, and almost all of our players have had runs of playing great and they’ve had periods where they haven’t played their best, so that’s our goal as coaches to get them consistently playing great.
WBR: What have you learned most about your team through the past four games?
KBB: I think that we’ve found out we’re a very good blocking team, so that’s good. I think that we have the potential to be a good defensive team. We still need to be a little more tenacious defensively. Some players that I think long term are going to be very good defensively still need to continue to improve and to realize the range that they can play. I think we’ve figured some of the lineup stuff out. We’ve went with the same lineup the last few games, so that’s been good. One of the big things we’re learning is who’s stepping up and who’s comfortable playing next to who and those sort of things.
WBR: What are the biggest improvements that your team needs to make in order to be successful this season?
KBB: I think our biggest area of improvement is just consistency. In our last two matches, our second match against (Texas) A&M and K-State, we had periods of time where we played great volleyball – volleyball that’s going to win us a lot of matches – but then in both of those matches we had long stretches where we were very inconsistent and let the other team go on big runs. To be a top 25, Division I program, you have to be great at all times and that’s what we’ve really got to work on, holding ourselves to those standards every single point. We can’t take a point off, and if we do we make an error or make a mistake, whatever the case may be, the next point’s got to be great. We can’t let a back-to-back error happen.
WBR: Creighton fans are excited for the Bluejay Invitational this weekend. What should fans expect from the visiting teams?
KBB: It’s going to be an awesome tournament. I think both Northern Illinois and Marquette are teams that are likely, if not a good chance of being a NCAA Tournament team. South Dakota just upset Oregon State last weekend. Northern Illinois, people might not realize how great of a team they are. This is a very, very, tough team. They’ve got a kid on the outside that averages over five kills a game. They’ve got firepower all over the place. One of our best wins of the season last year was beating Marquette. They returned everyone and they’ve got guns all over the place too. We are definitely going to have some great volleyball in D.J. Sokol this weekend.
