White & Blue Review is previewing the 2014 Creighton Bluejays volleyball season. You can check out all the preview posts here to read position-by-position breakdowns leading up to the season opening invitational at Kansas.
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The Creighton Bluejays volleyball team heads into the 2014 season with several key returnees when it comes to defense and their defensive specialists.
Check out photos from the Blue-White scrimmage!
Leading the way, likely to start her third season as the team’s libero, is junior Kate Elman. She is as excited as anyone for the season to get going as a brand new season.
“It is the same as all the other preseasons I have gone through,” said Elman. “Just because we return everybody doesn’t mean anything. Our season was last season. So we are all trying to make it a new season.”
Elman has been the libero for the Bluejays for every set the past two seasons. She led Creighton with 505 digs last season giving her 1122 for her career. She comes into the season with 10 or more digs in each of her final 23 matches from last season, the fourth longest streak in program history. She also led the team in service aces with 24.
While her production was down just slightly from her freshman year, where she was part of the MVC All-Freshman team, opponents have learned to avoid her a little more, keeping down the opportunity for digs. When it comes to competition for her position or any position, nothing is set in stone.
“It is something that the coaches love to challenge us with at the beginning of preseason is that whether you were a starter last year, or whether you were staring as a freshman, or whether you were not playing last year, everyone is getting a chance to play and prove themselves,” said Elman at fall media day.
Battling with Elman is fellow junior Ashley Jansen. Jansen was in for defense in 13 of the 30 matches she appeared in last season and was also known for her serving with 15 service aces. She also started at setter for four other matches last season, including a 3-0 victory over Villanova in her first start at setter.
Both Jansen and Elman come from the Omaha Marian pipeline that has served the Bluejays well for several years. There has been a player on the roster that hailed from Marian since the 2003-04 season. They both complement each other on defense for the Bluejays to get things setup for the setters or just get an opportunity for someone else to make a kill across the net.
Senior Katie Neisler has been used in the past as a defensive specialist. She could continue to play that role this season as well.
Waiting in the wings is sophomore Amanda Foje. Foje, who was a walk-on last season, only appeared in 7 matches last season, but has made several great strides in the offseason and was mentioned in the Blue/White scrimmage post-game comments by head coach Kirsten Bernthal Booth.
“Amanda Foje has really improved a great deal from last year, came out and had a good match tonight,” said Booth. She had 10 digs and an ace serve while playing for both teams in the scrimmage.
With Foje, also from Omaha, that makes the players at the defensive specialist positions all from Nebraska. This season, 10 of the 16 players on the roster are from Nebraska, which produces the most volleyball players per capita in the nation. Elman sees it as something great not only for Creighton, but schools across Nebraska.
“Nebraska is good at volleyball. I think a lot of the girls in Nebraska love to look up to college Nebraska programs all across Nebraska. Nebraska, Creighton, Wayne, Nebraska Wesleyan, a lot of little girls look up to that. It urges them to play harder. “
That also leads to the matchup with the Cornhuskers this fall in Lincoln playing for the first time at the Devaney Center. While most of the team knows they take one match at a time, it is obvious that they also have September 17th circled on their calendar.
“Obviously we have to take it one at a time, but when it comes to that night, I think everybody is pretty excited to get another crack at it. (The Devaney) will be a little bit bigger, but we took the last game in the Coliseum. I think the atmosphere is always the same. There is always going to be a huge crowd, there is always going to be a lot of noise.”
The Bluejays open the season on Friday against Lipscomb at the Kansas Invitational.