Creighton is less than three weeks away from becoming a member of the Big East Conference. With August not far behind, the fall sports schedule is first on the list to get finalized.
Although the league still hasn’t established a commissioner or a staff of any kind, this has not prevented sports officials from each school from putting together conference schedules for the fall. In fact Georgetown released a men’s soccer schedule last week that included all of their Big East matchups, including Creighton’s trip to Washington D.C. Xavier released a men’s soccer schedule this week that includes the Musketeers’ visit to Morrison Stadium on October 5 in an 8 p.m. match.
Along those same lines, Marquette was the first Big East school to release a full volleyball schedule. The Golden Eagles will visit the Bluejays on October 13 for a Sunday afternoon match at 1 p.m., and the Bluejays will return the trip Friday, October 25, in a 5 p.m. match, match kicking off three volleyball matches in three days for Marquette.
Marquette’s schedule release also includes the schedule for the Hampton Inn Invitational at Bowling Green that the Bluejays will be taking part in to open the season. Creighton will be taking on BYU to start the season on August 30 and then follow that up with a match against Bowling Green on August 31. Marquette and Creighton were originally scheduled to play each other, but that changed as it appeared both teams would be a part of the Big East.
As for the conference schedule, it appears to deviate from Creighton’s days in the MVC where matches would be played normally on a Friday night-Saturday night combination and an occasional Saturday night-Sunday afternoon. The Big East schedule looks to have a Friday-Saturday-Sunday set of three matches or a Friday night-Sunday afternoon schedule. The schedule release also confirms that Providence will not be part of the Big East in volleyball this season due to the full funding of the program at this time.
The top four teams in the league at the end of conference play will compete in the Big East tournament on November 29 and 30. The tournament will be hosted in Omaha and most likely at Sokol Arena.
Creighton and Marquette met each other in the first round of the NCAA Tournament last season, with the Jays sweeping the match in straight sets. It is likely that the Bluejays and the Golden Eagles will be battling for the Big East crown this season. Having the automatic bid on the line in Omaha could be an advantage this fall for head coach Kirsten Bernthal Booth’s squad.
Some other Volleyball notes:
- Jersey numbers have been assigned for the incoming freshman. Amanda Foje will wear #7 (Megan Bober’s old number), Kenzie Crawford will wear #10 (Brittany Moon’s old number), and Jess Bird will wear #13. The #13 jersey has not been worn since the 2006-07 season when Kristi Woodard, who was known more for her basketball prowess, spent her senior season as a member of the volleyball team.
- The volleyball team was one of three Creighton squads to be publicly recognized by the NCAA for their Academic Progress Rate (APR) scores. This is the fifth straight season that the Volleyball team has been recognized.
- Last summer Leah McNary spent her summer building her volleyball skills in China. This summer she is part of the Athletes in Action group in Mexico. They take a break from playing volleyball here in this video.
