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#13 Volleyball Wins Two of Three in Sioux Falls on Opening Weekend

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Weekly snapshot:

  • Beat #9 Purdue 3-2
  • Lost to #14 Minnesota 0-3
  • Beat #20 USC 3-1
  • Record 2-1

Creighton volleyball’s non-conference slate features 12 opponents; 11 of them made the NCAA Tournament a year ago, and all 12 owned an RPI of 44 or better. It’s a gauntlet, and the opening weekend showed off a Bluejay team ready to accept the challenge as they beat #9 Purdue and #20 USC sandwiched around a loss to #14 Minnesota.

“I’m really proud of our team’s response,” coach Brian Rosen said on Sunday. “The way we performed yesterday obviously wasn’t our best, wasn’t who we were. We talked a lot last night once we started scout for USC that yesterday was over. All our attention went to USC, but more importantly went to us.”

The tournament in Sioux Falls featured five ranked teams, and they beat up on each other. Minnesota beat CU, but lost 0-3 to #12 Arizona State. The Sun Devils then turned around and lost 0-3 to USC (who then lost to the Jays). Purdue played just once and lost to CU.

“What a fun tournament we just had. I was joking with our team that we’re the only team who left this tournament with a winning record,” Rosen said afterward. “Common opponent might not be the most fair metric in the NCAA tournament because we all just beat each other, but what a great event. What a great tournament. Awesome to be here at the Pentagon. Just really thankful to to be a part of this.”

Jays Open Season with Five-Set Win over #9 Purdue

[Box Score]

Creighton dominated the fifth set in their season opener, taking an 8-2 lead and holding off a desperate comeback attempt by Purdue who cut the lead to 13-11. A well-timed challenge from Brian Rosen flipped a late point in the Jays’ favor, and then they closed out the Boilermakers.

“Lots of things that we have to clean up. And some things to change,” Rosen said afterward. “We need to find out our identity as a team. We got punched pretty hard in that fourth set, so to respond the way we did in the fifth was awesome. That’s something that we can learn from throughout the season.”

Holding a 2-1 lead heading into the fourth set, Purdue completely dominated to even the match 2-2. The Boilermakers used an 8-0 run to take a 13-3 lead, with six blocks and 10 kills. But that made Creighton’s ability to wipe that from their minds before the decisive fifth all the more impressive.

“We usually come into huddles and we sit down, but this time we just all stood up and like held each other super tight,” senior Saige Damrow, who had a career-high 26 digs in this match, added. “We were like…there’s no pressure. It’s our first game. Let’s go down swinging. Let’s go down with energy. Let’s just go down having fun. And I think that after a fourth set like that, that was huge for us. And we just came out and we completely followed the scout and did everything we should be doing.”

Rosen noticed the same thing, and called it out in his postgame press conference.

“They refused to sit down, which I love because I know that they were tired. I know they’re feeling it,” Rosen said. “Sometimes you just have to tell yourself, I’m not tired. Like my legs feel great. I want five more sets. They did a really nice job faking it at least.”

The Jays’ newcomers had lots of shining moments in their Bluejay debuts. Trinity Shadd-Ceres had 13 kills, including three in the fifth set alone. One of them came on this ridiculous play late in the second set, where she sprouted wings:

Kansas transfer Katie Dalton became CU’s first player since Madelyn Cole in 2018 with a double-double in her Bluejay debut. Texas transfer Ayden Ames’ seven blocks were the most ever by a player in their Creighton debut, passing Kelli Browning’s six in 2011. Dalton and Ames teamed up on this block in the second set, and both were instrumental in the Jays’ defense at the net all afternoon.

“In the fifth set, it was just all confidence and in that locker room, you could feel it,” Damrow said. “Coming off of a win, no matter what it looks like, is just like such a confidence builder. And I think that’s something that we didn’t have last year. We lost our first two games and it was kind of just like, this is really hard. So like coming off this win, I think it’s going to be a great confidence builder. We know that we can do it.”

Highlights:

Press Conference:

Bluejays Stumble on Saturday

[Box Score]

As good as Friday was, Saturday was the opposite: #14 Minnesota had 10 aces, Creighton hit just .068 as a team and had 21 errors, and the Gophers rolled to a 3-0 win (25-18, 25-23, 25-12).

“Hats off to Minnesota. They were the aggressors all match,” Rosen said afterward. “I didn’t think we were competitive enough tonight. I didn’t think we were resilient enough. I love the fight that we came back out with in the second set, though. I thought we gave ourselves a chance to win that one, but even that was a little too late. We dug ourselves in a hole, but I love the energy and the effort that we played with in the second set. You know, we were running into walls, chasing down things. We’ve kind of said all year like defense and block needs to be our identity. We’ve got to get way cleaner offensively. We we didn’t kill enough balls today. That was our issue yesterday as well. So something that we’ve got to continue working on.”

Ayden Ames built on her big debut with eight kills in this one, while Saige Damrow added nine digs, four assists and a kill.

Highlights:

Postgame interview:

Creighton Rebounds for Four-Set Win over USC

[Box Score]

Facing a third ranked opponent in as many days, Creighton was out to prove that Saturday’s defeat was the outlier, and not Friday’s win. A decisive four-set victory over #20 USC where they won each of the last three sets did just that.

The Trojans won the first set 25-23, and took a 7-5 lead early in the second before the Jays turned the tide. Saige Damrow ripped off a 4-0 serving run to give CU the lead, Katie Dalton had a 3-0 serving run of her own moments later to keep the momentum going, and Ayden Ames had kills on two of the next three points:

Eloise Brandewie had three kills in the span of four points late in the set:

Dalton assisted on 10 of the Jays’ 14 kills in the second set alone, and the Jays evened the match with a 25-22 win.

“They go so fast. Our block was just a little late throughout that first set,” Rosen said. “We were actually tallying how many kills they got through our block because our hands weren’t over fast enough and the number was too high. I thought every set we got a little bit better at timing their blocks. That was a huge focus. We really did a nice job kind of commit blocking. We just continued to put more and more balls back on their side of the net which forced them to hit tougher angles and make some errors.”

In the third, CU took command with a 7-0 run featuring three kills by Abbey Hayes.

After USC rallied to tie the set 20-20, Ames and Shadd-Ceres combined for kills on four of the last five points, with Ames delivering both the one that gave CU the lead:

And the winner:

In the fifth, Creighton overcame an early 9-7 deficit with a 6-0 service run, featuring two aces by Sydney Breissinger.

Brandewie helped keep USC at bay with this kill that made it 20-17:

And then Trinity Shadd-Ceres tied a career-high with her 13th kill on match point:

“I thought we were really really clean on our side of the net and that was the goal. Even when they went on their runs, I just never felt like we were pressing,” Rosen said afterward. “I mean, the first set, we were down a couple points really the whole set, but I never felt the need to call a timeout because I just thought we were playing great volleyball. This is the most ‘us’ I’ve seen us play like in these matches. Our setting was really really good today. Our distribution was was so much better. And then we were just efficient offensively, limited our errors.”

Highlights:

Postgame interviews:

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