Change is inevitable in all walks of life, but for the Marquette Golden Eagles and everyone else in the Big East, the foreseeable future at least still appeared to be under the stranglehold of Kirsten Bernthal Booth and her Creighton volleyball program on Saturday night in Milwaukee.
With over 2,000 fans packed into the 16-year-old Al McGuire Center, the 13th-ranked Bluejays and 10th-ranked Golden Eagles met to determine an early front-runner for the 2019 Big East regular season title. As has been the case for the last five consecutive seasons, it was Creighton once again securing the win, defeating Marquette in five sets (25-21, 25-23, 27-29, 29-31, 15-8) to improve to 13-3 on the season and a perfect 6-0 in Big East play.
A number of players rose to the occasion for the Bluejays in a match where neither team owned a lead larger than five points at any time through the first four sets.
Redshirt freshman Keeley Davis became the third Creighton player ever to record 30 or more kills in a match, finishing with a career-high 31 on just 59 swings. Four-year starter Brittany Witt anchored the back row with a career-high 35 digs. Junior middle blocker Naomi Hickman gave the Jays an imposing presence at the net with a career-high 11 blocks. And junior outside hitter Erica Kostelac ended up one off her personal-best with a season-high 19 kills.
“People made some big plays,” Booth said. “Witt made some huge plays, Keeley had some huge swings, Naomi had some huge blocks, Erica had big swings. Different players stepped up and went for it. Against a team like Marquette you can’t expect them to lose it for you, you have to go and win it.”
Despite committing five service errors in the first set, Creighton was able to disrupt Marquette’s passing with their aggressive approach behind the line. That led to seven ace blocks by Jays — six from Hickman alone — as they held a potent Golden Eagles club to an .053 attack percentage en route to a 25-21 win. Kostelac and Davis combined for 8 kills on 16 swings, leading the way for an offense that hit at a .256 clip in game one.
Big East preseason player of the year Allie Barber got rolling for Marquette with five kills on seven swings in the second set, but the Golden Eagles (15-3, 5-1 Big East) still had no answers for Creighton’s productive duo on the pins. With the score tied midway through game two, Davis terminated three balls and dropped in an ace for good measure to give her team a 22-18 lead. Marquette rallied to trim that deficit to one, but Kostelac tooled the block in the middle of the net with an off-speed attack to hand the Jays a 25-23 game-two win, and, more importantly, a 2-0 match lead at the break.
After Marquette rolled out to a 17-12 lead in a must-win third set, Davis went to another level to try and close the show. She spear-headed a 12-5 run with four kills, a block, and an ace to give Creighton match point at 24-22. The Colorado native nearly finished the job with an attack down the line two points later, but it was ruled wide.
Kirsten Bernthal Booth immediately pulled out her green challenge card, and after a replay review, the official awarded Creighton the point and the match, sparking off an on-court celebration. The moment was fleeting, however, as the official meant to signal the point for Marquette after the review, but pointed toward the wrong bench originally. She laughed off her mistake, Creighton’s players turned their game faces back on, and the match resumed in a 24-24 tie.
Davis added a couple more kills to her growing tally to give the Bluejays two more match points, but the Golden Eagles ultimately prevailed, 29-27, to stay alive.
The fourth set was the best the conference has to offer as the two perennial top 20 programs combined for 21 ties and nine lead changes in a 31-29 thriller won by Marquette to push the match to a fifth and final game to determine sole possession of first place in the Big East.
Any momentum the Golden Eagles might have carried into the final set was quickly erased by the right arm of Keeley Davis. The five-time Big East freshman of the week sparked a 2-2 tie wide open with five kills on Creighton’s next seven points to give her team a commanding 9-3 lead, and it was a breeze to the finish from there as the Bluejays improved to 13-1 over their conference rivals since 2014.
“They showed great resiliency,” Booth said of her team’s performance. “To think that we won it in game three, and even though we lost that game I thought we played well. We lost another heart-breaker in game four, which was a great game. Then to come back and win game five handily was really impressive. At the time, I wasn’t happy that we had to keep playing, but it was actually really good for us that we had to deal with that adversity.”
The 31 kills on the night for Davis were not just a career best for the 6-foot-1 pin hitter, but they were also the most by any Creighton player in nearly 23 years.
“She was the best she’s been, Booth said of the redshirt freshman. “The fun thing was she was aggressive, but yet she mixed it up some, and she came up big at big times. From a coaching perspective those are all great things to see.”
Creighton has now won 29 straight matches against Big East opponents and are 96-4 over their last 100 matches in both league play and conference tournament action. The Bluejays will be back at home this weekend for matches against Butler on Friday, October 18 and Xavier on Sunday, October 20.