Senior libero Brittany Witt will help lead the Bluejays in 2019 (Spomer / WBR) CLICK TO BUY
Creighton gave its volleyball fans a pick-me-up on Tuesday morning with the official release of the full schedule for the upcoming 2019 regular season. The non-conference slate includes six teams that qualified for the 2018 NCAA Tournament, not to mention their two annual meetings against a Marquette team that advanced to the Sweet 16 last season as part of the 18-game Big East portion of their schedule.
“We kind of took the same formula that we’ve taken in the past,” Creighton head coach Kirsten Bernthal Booth said. “We want to play some of the toughest teams in the country and I think we are doing that during the non-conference schedule. Our first five matches over the first two weekends are really, really tough, and I think we’ll learn a lot about our team.”
The Bluejays open the season on Friday, August 30 in Lincoln as they face-off against in-state rival Nebraska. The Huskers are coming off a 29-7 season that ended in a five-set loss to top-ranked Stanford in the national championship match. Creighton will stay in Lincoln and take on Baylor on Saturday to conclude their opening weekend. The Bears finished last season ranked 24th in the final AVCA Coaches’ Poll after going 20-9, including an 11-5 mark in Big 12 play, and advancing to the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
Creighton will head to Cedar Falls, Iowa the following weekend for a four-team round-robin tournament that includes two national seeds from a year ago in Southern Cal and Kentucky, and an NCAA Tournament participant in Northern Iowa. Creighton will start things off on Friday, September 6 at 10:30 a.m. against a Kentucky club that earned the No. 10 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament and won 26 matches on the year before losing to Nebraska in the Sweet 16. Later that night, the Bluejays will take on a Northern Iowa team that won both the regular season and conference tournament titles in the Missouri Valley Conference last season before falling to Pepperdine in five sets in their opening match of the NCAA Tournament. CU will conclude the weekend against last year’s No. 11 overall seed in Southern Cal. The Trojans won 22 matches in 2018 before suffering an upset loss to San Diego in the second round to conclude their first season under head coach Brent Crouch.
Head Coach Kirsten Bernthal Booth always schedules tough. 2019 will be no different (Spomer / WBR) CLICK TO BUY
The Jays will conclude the non-conference portion of their schedule with five straight matches inside the friendly confines of D.J. Sokol Arena beginning with their intra-city rivals Nebraska-Omaha at 8:00 p.m. on Friday, September 13. The first meeting ever as D1 programs will be the headliner of the first day of the 2019 Bluejay Invite. The following day Creighton will face former Missouri Valley Conference foe Drake at noon, then host the same Washington team that eliminated the Jays on their home floor in last year’s NCAA Tournament later that night at 7:30 p.m. Before Big East play gets underway at the end of September, the Bluejays will close out the non-conference portion of their schedule with home matches against former Missouri Valley Conference rival Wichita State at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, September 19 and Wyoming at 1:00 p.m. on Saturday, September 21.
For the first time in four years the Bluejays will be without the services of star outside hitters Jaali Winters and Taryn Kloth as they take on another challenging schedule, but as Creighton’s head coach enters her 17th season at the helm she isn’t about to reinvent her formula for success.
“What we do as college coaches is reload,” Booth said. “Every year there are changes. We lost some players that played last year, but we also return a lot.
“Do I think our scheduling is aggressive? Absolutely. But the same anxiety that I have going into this fall is the same anxiety I have every year. I say anxiety, but it’s also excitement and a lot of fun. We want to be the best, so we’ve got to go see how we match up and learn from it — good or bad.”
Full 2019 Creighton Volleyball Schedule
- Saturday, August 17 vs. Blue-White Scrimmage (Exhibition Match at D.J. Sokol Arena – 3:30 p.m.)
- Friday, August 23 at Iowa State (Exhibition Match in Ames, Iowa – 6:30 p.m.)
Husker Invitational
- Friday, August 30 at Nebraska (Lincoln, Nebraska – TBA)
- Saturday, August 31 vs. Baylor (Lincoln, Nebraska – TBA)
UNI Tournament
- Friday, September 6 vs. Kentucky (Cedar Falls, Iowa – 10:30 a.m.)
- Friday, September 6 at Northern Iowa (Cedar Falls, Iowa – 7:30 p.m.)
- Saturday, September 7 vs. USC (Cedar Falls, Iowa – 5:00 p.m.)
Bluejay Invitational
- Friday, September 13 vs. Nebraska-Omaha (D.J. Sokol Arena – 6:00 p.m.)
- Saturday, September 14 vs. Drake (D.J. Sokol Arena – 12:00 p.m.)
- Saturday, September 14 vs. Washington (D.J. Sokol Arena – 7:30 p.m.)
Creighton Classic
- Thursday, September 19 vs. Wichita State (D.J. Sokol Arena – 6:30 p.m.)
- Saturday, September 21 vs. Wyoming (D.J. Sokol Arena – 1:00 p.m.)
Big East Conference Schedule
- Friday, September 27 vs. Villanova (D.J. Sokol Arena – 7:00 p.m.)
- Sunday, September 29 vs. Georgetown (D.J. Sokol Arena – 1:00 p.m.)
- Friday, October 4 at St. John’s (Queens, New York – 6:00 p.m.)
- Saturday, October 5 at Seton Hall (South Orange, New Jersey – 6:00 p.m.)
- Friday, October 11 at DePaul (Chicago, Illinois – 11:00 a.m.)
- Saturday, October 12 at Marquette (Milwaukee, Wisconsin – 6:00 p.m.)
- Friday, October 18 vs. Butler (D.J. Sokol Arena – 7:00 p.m.)
- Sunday, October 20 vs. Xavier (D.J. Sokol Arena – 1:00 p.m.)
- Friday, October 25 at Providence (Providence, Rhode Island – 5:00 p.m.)
- Saturday, October 26 at Providence (Providence, Rhode Island – 5:00 p.m.)
- Friday, November 1 vs. St. John’s (D.J. Sokol Arena – 7:00 p.m.)
- Sunday, November 3 vs. Seton Hall (D.J. Sokol Arena – 1:00 p.m.)
- Friday, November 8 at Villanova (Villanova, Pennsylvania – 6:00 p.m.)
- Saturday, November 9 at Georgetown (Washington, D.C. – 4:00 p.m.)
- Saturday, November 16 at Xavier (Cincinnati, Ohio – 12:00 p.m.)
- Sunday, November 17 at Butler (Indianapolis, Indiana – 12:00 p.m.)
- Friday, November 22 vs. Marquette (D.J. Sokol Arena – TBA)
- Sunday, November 24 vs. DePaul (D.J. Sokol Arena – TBA)
Big East Tournament
- Friday, November 29 Big East Championship Semifinal #1 (Milwaukee, Wisconsin – TBA)
- Friday, November 29 Big East Championship Semifinal #2 (Milwaukee, Wisconsin – TBA)
- Saturday, November 30 Big East Championship Final (Milwaukee, Wisconsin – TBA)