Last weekend the Creighton volleyball team survived a five-set thriller against St. John’s to earn a share of the 2014 Big East regular season title. On Friday night, they decided they weren’t in the sharing mood as they swept the visiting Villanova Wildcats 25-13, 25-9, 25-10 to win the title outright in front of 2,067 fans at a sold out D.J. Sokol Arena. It was the largest home crowd of the season and second largest they’ve played in front of all year long.
“It was frustrating at the beginning [of the season], but working through it all and now that we’re Big East champs it’s just an awesome feeling,” sophomore Jess Bird said. “To be able to play in front of all these people as well, it’s been quite the journey this season and I want to keep going.”
Bird led all players with a match-high 10 kills while also delivering a career-high three aces from the service line. That was a big area for the Bluejays as they finished with 11 aces as a team, their second-most of the season, while also getting Villanova out of system for majority of the first two sets.
“The aces were awesome, but we took them out of system so much. It was, I think, the best serving night of the year for us,” head coach Kirsten Bernthal Booth said. “We were serving rockets consistently at every position. And we felt like Villanova’s maybe greatest strength was their passing, so to disrupt them that much I think was really huge.”
The strong serving started from the moment junior Ashley Jansen stepped to the service line with Creighton trailing 2-0 early in the first set. The defensive specialist out of Omaha Marian High School served up a 6-0 run for the Bluejays, including a pair of aces, to put her team in front and force an early timeout by the Wildcats. Villanova cut the lead to one with a 3-0 run out of the timeout, but a cross court kill by senior Kelli Browning put a stop to that and kicked off a 9-1 run to extend the lead to 15-6 and burn both of Villanova’s timeouts in the process.
Senior setter Michelle Sicner served up Creighton’s fourth ace of the first set to give her team a double-digit cushion, one they would build upon to take a 1-0 lead in the match after a 25-13 victory in the first game. It capped off a strong start for a team that has sometimes struggled to find the right gear to play with at the beginning of home matches. Throughout the year at times they have come out too loose and then at times too tight, but tonight Creighton looked to have the right combination from almost the very beginning.
“You know this team, in my opinion, some teams need to be really loose, some teams need to really focused and there is a mix for this group,” Coach Booth said. “I think that when they get too ‘loosey goosey’ they can falter, but they need to make sure they’re not tight, so you know they’re working to find that.
“We were down 0-2 so you could argue that we didn’t come out as strong,” she joked.
Sicner noted that the Bluejays stayed focused on the importance of what each remaining match meant to them in order to find that mixture needed for a good start to the match, “We knew what we were playing for and we know every single match is important, so we are telling ourselves every single match, we have to get in the right mindset,” she said. “Whether it’s dancing in the locker room or it’s getting pumped up some way or another, we know every single game is important.”
Creighton built off the big first set, carrying the momentum into the second. An ace by Browning gave the Bluejays a 4-3 lead, but Villanova would later tie it up at 5-5 before Bird started to make her mark on the match. She dropped in three kills and teamed up with Lauren Smith for a combo block to key an 8-1 run for the Bluejays to put them ahead 13-6. Bird would later add another kill as well as her first ace of the evening to make it 19-8 and put Villanova out of reach. Junior outside hitter Lizzy Stivers came on and served up another ace for the Bluejays to finish off a 25-9 second set win and give her team a 2-0 lead at intermission.
Both teams came out of the locker room sluggish and it showed on the court in the early going in set three. The Bluejays and Wildcats combined for six service errors and three attack errors that didn’t involve a block by either team by the midway point of the set. Kills by Jays’ freshman Marysa Wilkinson and sophomore Lauren Smith pushed Creighton out to a 12-7 lead. After Villanova cut it 12-8, junior outside hitter and libero Melanie Jereb served up an 8-0 run, including her only two aces of the match, to push the lead to 20-8 and start the countdown to the school’s first outright Big East regular season title. Junior setter Maggie Baumert iced the title-clinching sweep with a solo block of Wildcats’ junior outside hitter Colleen Hickey.
Shortly after the ball hit the floor for the final time, the entire Creighton team gathered at the end of the court for a team photo before heading to the hallway at D.J. Sokol Arena to sign autographs for many of the 2,067 fans who were there to see the historic accomplishment. While this is just one goal in a season that head coach Kirsten Bernthal Booth hopes is far from finished, she said after the match that she wants this group to enjoy the achievement for a little while before looking ahead.
“It’s exciting. We set some big goals at the beginning of the year, and to win the Big East championship outright on our home court was really special,” said Booth. “I think we created that over particularly the last two weeks. Three of our four matches over the last two weeks on the road our backs were against the wall, we could’ve lost them, and this team figured out a way to win. I feel like this was the celebration tonight of coming out and playing in front of over 2,000 people. Really dominating the match and it was a lot of fun. I’m so happy for the whole team. I’m really happy for the seniors. You know we have a lot of season in front of us, but I want them to enjoy this tonight.”
Those four seniors, outside hitters Leah McNary and Katie Neisler, Honorable Mention All-American setter Michelle Sicner, and two-time Honorable Mention All-American middle blocker Kelli Browning each spoke after the match about what this night meant to them and how it may even stand out for a group that in their not yet four full seasons has won 92 games, including the program’s first outright regular season conference titles in the Missouri Valley and now Big East conference, and appeared in two NCAA Tournaments and won their first round match in each trip.
Leah McNary: “Even if I wasn’t a senior this would be such an awesome experience. Knowing that these are two of my last games here at Creighton it’s really nice obviously to win and get the title. I think it’s becoming surreal that everything is almost over. It’s sad, but at the same time I’m excited because we still have a lot of season left. … It was really fun [playing in front of this crowd], especially seeing all the younger faces on the little kids that were here. I don’t know, I love playing here and when there is a huge crowd it just makes it even better.”
Katie Neisler: “We wanted to be selfish. We wanted to win it all. We’ve talked about it that we’re not where we want to be yet. We still have a lot more ahead of us, so we want to keep pushing. It was an awesome experience. Our last weekend at home, and last weekend ever for me at home, it made it a great experience to end on. When we came in we were in the MVC and we didn’t really know what to expect as freshmen, obviously. But each year we just got better and better, and it’s awesome to be able to experience it with the group that I came in with and to do great things for the program.”
Michelle Sicner: “This is what it’s about. As seniors, and the whole team, the first Big East championship as a team for Creighton? That’s awesome, and it’s awesome to be a senior and to be able to have that, especially one of our last home games. … I’m very, very fortunate that I’m getting the opportunity again to be back on the court, and I want to take advantage of it. I wanted the team to do well this year. I want us to accomplish goals that we’ve been having the last four years, you know. It’s just an awesome feeling and I’m glad that it’s with these girls. … We were talking about [what we’ve accomplished as seniors]. Our first year was a little rough, but after that it feels like it’s just been progressing more and more each year. We’re telling each other we can do this this year. We can get to the Sweet 16 and maybe we can go further. It’s just weird how fast it’s gone by, especially for us four.”
Kelli Browning: “This is so cool. It was one of our big goals of the year, and to finally have it accomplished is so great. We’re nowhere near done yet, but we’re definitely getting there. … I was talking to Katie Neisler and we were talking about how this weekend might be a little emotional for us since it’s our last time playing in front of this crowd. We knew that we wanted to leave Omaha with a bang, and show them everything that we got these last two games. The atmosphere was awesome tonight. We had such a great crowd, and it was just a really fun game to play. … I knew coming into Creighton that we could do something big with this program and that this program was going places. We want to keep that standard high and keep that level of play high. As a senior and as I’m starting to end up my career here you just want to continue to do that. You want to continue to build the program and it’s such an honor to have Creighton your back, so that’s what we’re going to try and do.”
The Bluejays improved to 23-7 on the season and 17-1 in conference play with the victory. They have just one regular season match remaining and it will be against the only team to defeat them in conference play this year in the Seton Hall Pirates. First serve is set for 12:00 p.m. at D.J. Sokol Arena where Creighton’s four seniors will look for some pay back in the final home match of their already historic collegiate careers.
