Jaela Zimmerman helped lead the way for the Bluejays (Williams / WBR)
The 23rd-ranked Creighton volleyball team got the first leg of their final regular season road trip off on the right note by sweeping Georgetown at McDonough Arena in Washington, D.C. on Friday afternoon. The Bluejays improved to 25-3 on the season and 13-2 in the Big East with a 25-13, 25-15, 25-14 win over the Hoyas, who fell to 6-20 overall and 2-13 in conference play.
Senior libero Abby Bottomley, senior outside hitter Jaela Zimmerman, and freshman outside hitter Norah Sis produced 47 of Creighton’s 58 digs as part of a defensive effort including nine blocks and nine service aces that helped the Bluejays overcome a .208 team-wide attack percentage in the first two sets. Recently retired Creighton Athletic Director Bruce Rasmussen texted head coach Kirsten Bernthal Booth after the match and told her never to take a road win for granted. That was the prevailing sentiment on a day when the team’s three top hitters — Zimmerman, Sis, and junior outside hitter Keeley Davis — each finished with a sub-.200 attack percentage.
“We know that Georgetown isn’t at the top of the league, but we also know that they’ve notched some upsets at home,” Booth said after the match. “They have some really good pieces when they come together, so I was pleased to get out with the sweep.”
Behind the effort of their serving, blocking, and defense, Creighton held the Hoyas to .000 hitting on 42 swings in set one, .024 hitting on 42 swings in set two, and .031 hitting on 32 swings in set three. For the match, Georgetown finished with an .017 attack percentage — the second-lowest by a Jays’ opponent this season (Wyoming, .016).
“I thought we had a pretty good serving night because this is actually a pretty tough arena to serve in,” Booth said. “It’s got huge depth behind each end line. I thought we did a nice job getting accustomed to the place and were able to go on some runs.”
Today marked the 13th time in 28 matches this season that Booth’s Bluejays have held an opponent below the .100 hitting mark. With a few weeks to spare before the NCAA Tournament that’s already more sub-.100 hitting performances by an opponent than in any other season in the history of the program.
“That’s something that we do well,” Booth said. “And we knew that even in the preseason that we were a big blocking team and we’re solid defensively at every spot. I think our dig to transition rate needs to go up a little bit more, but there were a lot of long plays [today] and I thought we weathered that pretty well. Sometimes we get into those long rallies and we make an error, and I didn’t see that tonight.”
Norah Sis led all player with eight kills. Jaela Zimmerman, Keeley Davis, and senior middle blocker Annika Welty each had five terminations. But despite committing just three attack errors in each set against the Hoyas, the Bluejays only managed a .218 attack percentage for the match on 101 swings. Finding ways to be more efficient offensively is a point of emphasis going forward with postseason play right around the corner.
“One of the things we talked about was we’ve got to put the ball down sooner in rallies,” Booth said. “I thought we hit hard, but we hit maybe right outside the block and so a defender could sit there. We’ve got to do more things to move the ball around and not be quite as predictable. We were low error so that was good. I just think we have to maybe get a little bit more creative with our shots.”
Creighton will close out the road portion of their Big East schedule at Villanova on Saturday at 6:00 p.m. The Wildcats (15-12, 7-8 Big East) beat Providence in four sets on Friday night. Beyond just wanting to beat each other, each team won’t be lacking for motivation with the quick turnaround. The Jays need to keep winning to keep pace with Marquette atop the Big East standings, while the Wildcats find themselves two matches behind DePaul for the final spot in the Big East Tournament with three matches left in the regular season, making it a must-win match for both squads.
“I think the team has to understand that Villanova, although they’ve struggled a lot this year, will probably be a different team tomorrow night against us,” Booth said. “We respect Villanova and we know they have pieces to be very good. A lot of it I think is going to come down to serving and passing again. We’ve got to be clean defensively, but I hope we can continue to work on putting the ball down sooner from an offensive standpoint.”