Senior midfielder Aida Kardovic scored her second goal of the season with 37:20 left in the second half to help Creighton earn a 1-1 draw against Butler in the regular season finale on Thursday night at Morrison Stadium.
Aida Kardovic (10) scored the tying goal for the Jays on Thursday night (Juszyk / WBR)
The Bluejays fell behind a little over 15 minutes into the match when Butler freshman midfielder Talia Sommer stole away a pass near the center circle and raced downfield for an unassisted finish. As they’ve done on numerous occasions this season, Creighton picked themselves up and settled into the match shortly after that. They took over to the point of finishing the night with a 15-10 edge in total shots, including a 7-4 advantage in shots on goal.
“I think we were a little surprised because this is a different team than any other team we’ve played in the Big East so far,” Kardovic said. “It took us some time to get used to their rotations, especially in the middle. But once we got the gist of it, I think we played ourselves into this game. We were a little bit late on every step. We were a yard too late at times and it gave them a chance to play out of the back, but once we understood how they were playing with all their rotations, I think we did a pretty good job playing ourselves back into the game.”
Creighton held Butler without a shot for the final 11 minutes of the first half. That streak continued after both teams came out of the locker room and resulted in Kardovic level things up just under eight minutes into the second half. The match-tying sequence started when junior defender Peighton Steffen played a ball up the right sideline to sophomore midfielder Azumi Manriki, who then put a cross about a yard in front of the near post where Kardovic run onto it and stuck her left leg in front of the center back to redirect it into the net.
“I know Azumi pretty well and she’s pretty technical and has a great cross,” Kardovic said. “I knew if I could get anything onto the ball, or even just push my opponent to score an own goal, that I would be just fine. With anything like that you just have to go ball searching.”
Butler got a little daring and opened themselves up more in search of the go-ahead goal, but Creighton settled back in and responded by out-shooting the Bulldogs 7-2 over the final 20+ minutes of play. Nothing came of it, however, and both teams settled for the draw to wrap up the regular season. Entering the day, there was a chance that a draw could have still resulted in a hosting assignment for Creighton in the first round of the Big East Tournament, but an incident at the residence hall that neighbors Wish Field in Chicago caused the match between St. John’s and DePaul to be cancelled. As a result, St. John’s automatically locked up the No. 3 seed and the Big East switched the tiebreaker scenario to winning percentage instead of points because of the uneven number of conference matches played by everyone. With the Red Storm suddenly out of the equation, it just became a tiebreaker between Creighton and Butler. The Bulldogs edged it out due to accruing more points this season against the six teams that qualified for the conference tournament and will host the Jays on Sunday at noon (central time).
That wasn’t the news Creighton was hoping to hear at the end of the night, but it’s the path they are on now and it’s better than the alternative of not having the opportunity to put on the uniform again.
“I have no other choice but to like it,” Kardovic said. “I am excited, honestly. Not every team gets to play a playoff game and be in the Big East Tournament, so whatever it comes down to we’re excited to play whoever it is. We are going out there to win, I don’t care if it’s Butler, if it’s Georgetown, if it’s Xavier. I’m here to win.”
The winner of Creighton/Butler on Sunday will advance to the Big East Tournament semifinals where they will take on regular season champion Georgetown at the Maryland SoccerPlex in Boyds, Maryland on Thursday, November 3rd.