Every head coach around the country wants as much time as possible to prepare their team for a season. For them, there is always something their team can do better. Kirsten Bernthal Booth is no different, but even she admits that it’s time to play some games that count after three weeks of preparing her Creighton Volleyball team for the 2015 season.
“I think you hit a point where while there are things you can get better at, it’s time to play somebody else,” Booth said. “You can only play so much of yourself, and new teams are going to exploit things that we haven’t spent enough time on and all of those things, but that’s what you do. Then you go back to the gym on Monday and you get better. I think we’re all excited to see someone else on the other side of the net.”
Creighton will travel to Champaign, Illinois to take part in the Illini Classic, a four-team, two-day tournament hosted at Huff Hall by the 8th-ranked Illinois Fighting Illini. The Bluejays will play once on Friday, then twice on Saturday to conclude the trip.
Their first opponent on Friday at 4:00 p.m. (CST) will be Miami of Ohio. The Redhawks and Bluejays have only met once before, which came at the Blue Raider Bash in Murfreesboro, Tennessee in September of 2006. Creighton won the match in four sets. Miami (OH) finished third in the Mid-American Conference in 2014 before falling in the conference tournament title game to end their season. They were picked to finish second in the MAC East Division, and return 10 of 13 players from last year’s team, including 2014 First Team All-MAC selection in senior middle blocker Paige Hill as well as fellow middle blocker in senior Jenny Ingle, who set the school record with a .367 hitting percentage a year ago.
“Miami (OH) has a coach that has been there a really long time, an outstanding coach,” Booth said. “They are very well trained; kind of a scrappy, high IQ team. They lost two right side players from last year, one was a setter, but they return both of their middle blockers and they’re outside hitters, so they return the core of their team. They lost in the MAC Championship last year, so we’re going to have our hands full.”
Creighton’s second match take place at 12:00 p.m. (CST) on Saturday against a talented Louisville team. It will be the first time Creighton has ever played the Cardinals, who were picked to finish 5th in the Atlantic Coast Conference Preseason Poll behind #7 North Carolina, #9 Florida State, #25 Duke, and a Miami (FL) team that is receiving votes in the top 25.
The Louisville roster features preseason All-ACC selections in senior setter Katie George and a transfer from South Florida in senior outside hitter Erin Fairs. They also returner their team leader in kills from a season ago in junior outside hitter Maya McClendon, a First Team All-ACC performer from a year ago in redshirt junior outside hitter Janelle Jenkins, and 2014 American Volleyball Coaches Association East Region Freshman of the Year in sophomore middle blocker Tess Clark, who ranked 12th in the nation last year with a .407 hitting percentage.
Joining those returnees is a highly touted recruiting class headlined by a two-time United State Junior National Team participant in libero Molly Sauer.
“Louisville has a couple kids that fly on the pins, both on the left side and the right side,” Booth said. “They have a transfer from South Florida who was the best player I think at South Florida. They really are a team that has a lot of firepower. From what I’ve seen on film of them they look very very good, and I think their recruiting class was maybe 16th or 17th in the country, so they’ve got a lot of young kids that are coming in.”
The Bluejays will conclude their season-opening weekend by clashing with the 8th-ranked Fighting Illini at 7:00 p.m. (CST) on Saturday evening. Illinois is 3-0 all-time against Creighton, including two wins in Omaha, most recently in four sets last season at the Creighton Classic.
Already expected to be one of the best teams in the country, the Illini added the nation’s top-ranked recruiting class to their 2015 outlook, which sees them starting the season inside the AVCA Top 10 for the fourth consecutive season. They were picked to finish third in the Big Ten behind only reigning national champion and top ranked Penn State as well as 5th-ranked Nebraska. Senior outside hitter Jocelyn Birks was a preseason All-Big Ten selection for the third time in her career, and incoming freshman setter Jordyn Poulter was the 3rd-ranked recruit in the nation for the 2015 class.
“Illinois is saying their goal is a national championship, so that tells you their caliber,” Booth said. “They had I think the number one recruiting class in the country. They’ve got a freshman setter that everyone is talking about, and then they’ve got a stud outside hitter, a big time stud outside hitter. They also have a pretty tough environment to play in, so it’s a great opportunity for us to play another high caliber team. All three of the teams are going to be a dogfight, so it should be fun.”
On The Road Again
With their first six matches of the season coming away from the friendly confines of D.J. Sokol Arena, the Bluejays will be beginning the season on the road for the fifth consecutive year and eighth time overall since Kirsten Bernthal Booth became the head coach back in 2003. Just as stacking the schedule with tough non-conference opponents is designed to test her teams and help them build strong resumes for the NCAA Tournament, starting the season on the road is also been a calculated decision on the part of the Creighton coaching staff.
“I don’t know how many years we’ve been doing a first weekend road trip, but it was a decision that we made as a staff,” Booth said as she prepares for her 13th season on the Creighton sideline. “We wanted to go on the road the first weekend because it’s a different level of bonding, particularly for the new players. They’re in a hotel room with one player, who is probably older, that they get to know because they spend some more time with them. We’ll also be on a bus for a couple of hours, so those are really good things for bonding.
“This team has a lot of strengths, but probably even over our physical talent it’s the chemistry and the culture of this group, so while I don’t think we need a bonding trip, I think it’s always a good thing. No matter how much you like the freshmen, and no matter how much the freshmen like the older players, time is the only thing that creates that closeness, and hopefully that much time on the road can take another step toward that.”
You won’t get any complaints about it from her players. Especially from ones such as redshirt junior middle blocker Lauren Smith who have grown accustomed to navigating through both the challenging schedules and the new places they visit along the way.
“We don’t care who is on the other side of the net,” Smith said. “We are going to go out and we are going to play great volleyball, and we’re aiming to win and to play the best that we can. Having a tough non-conference just puts us in position to go out there and leave everything out on the court.”
As for whether it helps to start out the season in front of the hometown fans or in a hostile environment, Smith says it doesn’t matter to her either way.
“Home or away to start the season I don’t really have a preference. You just have to dive in if the water is nice.”
