Xavier hit .317 and saw six different players record multiple kills over the final two games to pull off a 21-25, 25-21, 17-25, 25-20, 15-10 upset of 11th-ranked Creighton on Saturday night at The Cintas Center in Cincinnati. Sophomore outside hitter Ava Martin led the Bluejays with a match-high 21 kills and added a career-high 16 digs for her third double-double in the last five matches, but the Musketeers were too efficient and too diverse offensively when it mattered most.
“I think they have pretty good parity, so that became a challenge,” Creighton head coach Kirsten Bernthal Booth said afterwards. “I thought [Emma Grace] had a really great match and we didn’t make adjustments. She hit a lot of the same shots over and we continued to struggle to defend her — our block has to get more touches, and we have to do a better job defending right side attacks right now.
“It wasn’t really one thing with their offense. They have a really good setter, and she distributes the ball really well.”
Sophomore outside hitter Emma Grace led three Musketeers in double figures with 15 kills to go along with nine digs, a career-high (and match-best) five aces, and three blocks. Delaney Hogan, Anna Taylor, and Sarah Stevens backed up Grace with 30 kills on a .324 combined attack percentage between them.
Senior middle blocker Kiana Schmitt got rolling in set two for Creighton to finish with 14 kills on .375 hitting, but Xavier blocking, serving, and defense held to Ellie Bichelmeyer, Ann Marie Remmes, and Destiny Ndam-Simpson to an .013 attack percentage on 80 combined swings to offset what Martin and Schmitt were able to produce.
“Xavier played very well and I thought they worked harder than us,” Booth said. “They were just grittier than we were tonight. We had flashes of playing good volleyball, but we didn’t sustain it, and then at times we got passive. We’ve got to stay aggressive and play our game, and I thought Xavier did a better job with that.”
Creighton led wire to wire in the first set after putting together three separate scoring runs within the first 15 rallies to open up a commanding 12-3 lead. Xavier settled in after a timeout and turned game one into a side-out battle late to only lose by two. That trend continued in set two before Bichelmeyer sandwiched kills around a pair of attack errors by Musketeer fifth-year outside hitter Brooklyn Cink to open up a 17-11 lead for the Jays. The wheels fell off after that as Xavier stepped up from the service line to ignite a run that saw them win 14 of the last 18 rallies to even the match at one set apiece heading to intermission.
Xavier carried that momentum out the locker room by pulling out to a 10-6 lead in set three. That’s when Kiana Schmitt took over with four kills on six error-free swings to help Creighton outhit the Musketeers .262 to .079 and cruise to a convincing 25-17 win. Schmitt another pair of kills early in the potential match-clinching fourth set to get the Jays off and running with a 4-0 lead. But Xavier’s serving once again halted CU’s momentum as that 4-0 lead quickly turned into a 14-9 deficit. The Bluejays never got closer than three points the rest of the set before Grace finished it off with a kill and an ace for the 25-20 win.
Ava Martin found the floor for a couple of out of system kills early in the fifth and deciding set, but Xavier won seven of 10 rallies to break a 4-4 tie and pull away for the 15-10 win to polish off the upset.
The win was Xavier’s fifth in a row and first over a Top 25 team since September 14, 2007. It was also their first win over Creighton in 24 tries. The Bluejays had won 17 straight sets against the Musketeers going into Saturday’s matchup. Xavier reset the slate on all of that and issued the Jays a reminder of what the next two months of conference play are going to be like for them.
“We have to realize that we are going to have a target on our back every game and we have to be able to respond to that emotionally,” Booth said. “We have to go win it as opposed to getting passive. We can’t play in a state of stress. Game three was a great example in that I thought we started out stressed, then really flipped the script and got aggressive and played good volleyball. We have to do that every point and not compete against ourselves sometimes.”
