The magical season continues, at least for another day.
Creighton made the most of the school’s first appearance in the NCAA Volleyball Tournament, turning away the #16 Iowa State Cyclones in a thrilling 5-set match (27-25, 16-25, 25-23, 19-25, 15-11). The Bluejays, underdogs to the tournament-savvy Cyclones, let everyone at the Minnesota Sports Pavilion they were for real while storming back from a 24-21 deficit in the first set to win 27-25.
CU dropped the second set, but took a 2-1 lead after three thanks to a timely kill and block assist from Heather Thorson. The fourth set went to Iowa State, leading to a fifth and deciding frame.
The Bluejays trailed 6-5 in the first-to-15 set before a Megan Bober kill and two errors by ISU. Creighton’s lead would reach 12-8, thanks to two Alicia Runge kills, and then forced match point on a kill by Karisa Almgren. The Jays won the match on a tip kill by Laurel Sanford. Then hysteria broke out amongst the Bluejays.
After the game, Iowa State’s Carly Jenson talked about the possibility that the Cyclones got caught looking past Creighton. She told the media, “We just kind of expected to go play Minnesota (on Saturday),” Jenson said. “I thought maybe our focus was more on Minnesota and not as much on Creighton, and that’s probably why we lost.”
When preparing her team, Kirsten Bernthal Booth thought the Jays could beat Iowa State, something she repeatedly told her players.
“After seeing the tape I believed we could be competitive against Iowa State and we could pull off the upset,” she told GoCreighton.com. “I anticipated that we’d play well. I also know that when we lost those two games, like I told the team, we got beat pretty handily in the games we lost, but there was never a doubt that I thought we’d come back and play hard. We’ve done that consistently all year. We don’t roll over. I knew they’d play hard, even after getting shellacked in a couple games.”
And so the Bluejays remain in the NCAA Tournament, the last Missouri Valley Conference team left standing. They play host Minnesota Saturday night at 6 p.m. The #12 Golden Gophers pose a formidable challenge, but some of the current Bluejays have experience playing Minnesota. Allie Oelke collected 13 kills during a 3-1 loss to #13 Minnesota in 2007, while both Oelke and Sanford saw time against the #16 Gophers in a 3-0 loss to Minnesota in Omaha in 2008.
Tonight’s match begins at 6 p.m. Here’s how you can follow the action:
- Watch the free webcast online at www.gocreighton.com or www.ncaa.com/wvb.
- Listen to the match on KOIL (1180 AM) with Chris Tubbs and Rob Anderson on the call.
- Live stats will be available through www.gocreighton.com, as well.
- Get match updates via Twitter by following the official GoCreighton feed.
