A slow start by the Creighton Volleyball team allowed the 16th-ranked Illinois Fighting Illini to open up a 2-0 lead before intermission en route to a four-set victory (25-15, 25-20, 24-26, 25-22) over the Bluejays on Friday night. The crowd was the largest crowd to see the Jays play a non-conference opponent at D.J. Sokol Arena since an August, 31, 2010 match against 7th-ranked Nebraska.
The Fighting Illini came out and smacked home 17 kills on 30 swings, good for a .500 hitting percentage as a team as they opened the match with a 25-15 win in the first set. They cooled off to a more realistic, but still efficient .281 mark in the second set as they never trailed in taking a 2-0 match lead into intermission.
“I thought it was, if not the worst, then one of the worst starts we’ve had all season as far as the longevity of the start and how discombobulated and out of rhythm we were,” said Creighton head coach Kirsten Bernthal Booth. “At halftime we asked [the players] ‘What is going on?’ and they said they were tense, so to their credit they figured it out, relaxed and played two great games. You just can’t do that against Illinois by getting in the kind of hole.”
The Bluejays bounced back by taking a tough third set, 26-24, to extend the match. Creighton (6-5) got another big game out of senior middle blocker Kelli Browning who had five kills on 10 swings in the set, and had a combo block with setter Maggie Baumert to finish off the Illini and push them to a fourth set.
That fourth game proved to be more of what each team is capable of as both teams hit over .200 and limited their errors in a set that involved 12 ties and six lead changes. The final lead change came on a kill by redshirt junior Jocelynn Birks, who followed it up with an ace to key a 5-2, game-ending run for the Fighting Illini. Birks finished with a match-high 18 kills on 40 swings to help the Illini improve to 6-3 on the season.
Senior Katie Neisler continued to fill in well for injured outside hitter Jess Bird, finishing with a career-high 12 kills. Fellow senior Kelli Browning had another strong match with 16 kills in 31 swings to go along with four blocks. The two-time All-American middle blocker has hit .400 or better in each of her last three matches, combining for 51 kills and just seven attack errors during that stretch. “Her vision, her leadership, she is doing a phenomenal job,” Booth said.
“She’s just a really good leader,” senior Leah McNary said of Browning. “She keeps us all together. She always comes out with the same energy and same competitiveness. She’s a really consistent player and a key cog for keeping us together.”
Creighton won’t have much time to dwell on the positives or negatives from this loss as they take on a dangerous South Dakota team at noon on Saturday before facing Colorado at 7:00 p.m. later that evening. The Coyotes improved to 5-5 on the season, snapping the Buffaloes eight-game winning streak prior to the Creighton-Illinois match. Before the season, Kirsten Bernthal Booth highlighted two matches that concerned her the most — the season-opener vs Lipscomb (which the Jays won in four sets) and tomorrow’s tilt with South Dakota.
“They have great momentum,” Booth said of the Coyotes. “[Outside hitter] Kendall Kritenbrink carries a ton of load, but their other outside was really impressive today, and their lefty middle was really impressive, so it’s not a one-man show by any means. We are going to need to play well to be successful. We get that this is a huge match. We got killed by them this spring, so our team respects South Dakota.”