After the Creighton Bluejays volleyball team’s first weekend in action, head coach Kirsten Bernthal Booth summed it up in one statement:
“We have to get better. We have pieces to be good, but we have to be more consistent. We have to better our end game. We have to serve better.”
The Bluejays started off with impressive wins over Lipscomb and Utah Valley last Friday. However, they couldn’t finish games like they needed to on Saturday against the host No. 23 Kansas Jayhawks. Instead of leaving Lawrence winners of the Kansas Invitational, the Jays fell out of the top 25 poll.
While Booth’s team didn’t come home with the hardware they hoped for, the good news is that they don’t have a whole lot of time to think about the loss. A bigger invitational looms around the corner starting on Friday in Kentucky, where the Bluejays will take on former MVC nemesis Northern Iowa on Friday evening and then face No. 6 USC and No. 16 Kentucky on Saturday.
This invite is the first of a four-year rotation between these four schools, with each one getting the opportunity to host. The Bluejays will finish up the series when they host their version of this tournament during the 2017 season.
Booth played a lot of different rotations last week in Kansas, getting 15 of the 16 players on the roster some playing time. While there was a lot to see, the rotations heading into this weekend are still wide open.
“It is still fluid at this point. We are still figuring out what will be our best lineup,” said Booth.
While everyone has been intrigued by how the setter position competition between Michelle Sicner and Maggie Baumert will play out, probably one of the bigger surprises from last weekend was the early insertion of freshman Marysa Wilkinson into the lineup.
Wilkinson made her presence known right away. She did not play in the opening match against Lipscomb, but then played in two of the three sets against Utah Valley where she connected on 5 of her 7 kill attempts. Against Kansas, she was active in all four sets of that match recording 6 kills in that one. With a team full of veterans, she may play an important role in the coming weeks.
“It was exciting and nerve racking, but it was fun,” said Wilkinson speaking about her first entry into the games. “After the first kill I was like ‘Okay, here we go. I can actually do this.'”
While nervous about the experience, she did share the things that are different now at the college level.
“Just the game. I don’t know; college is a whole different environment than high school, so that was scary. It is a lot faster and a higher level of play. But the girls are super nice and comforting, so when I started playing, it wasn’t bad,” Wilkinson said.
Wilkinson may also play a bigger role in the absence of Jess Bird. After trying to play last weekend it was determined that Bird would have her knee scoped, which could have the sophomore sidelined from 3-6 weeks. After starting all of Creighton’s matches last season, having her out of the lineup will likely force bringing Wilkinson along a little faster. However, that should make the Bluejays even deeper when Bird comes back in time for Big East play.
“They expect me to put the ball down, but it is OK. Playing against high level teams is awesome and just seeing the competition,” Wilkinson said.
For Booth, it just made sense to put the freshman into the game after the practices she had leading up to the start of the season.
“We knew Marysa and Toni (Tupper) would come in and fight for positions. They both came from good school and club programs. I had no idea who would get opportunities, they had to come in and earn it. But I am not shocked by any stretch. I knew that Marysa was a good player, just as I know Toni is and I think Brittany (Lawrence) is developing to be that. She will be a great player too,” Booth said.
Heading into this weekend’s matches, Booth knows that this won’t be an easy task, but sees her team benefiting from this type of competition.
“We will have to play great ball consistently to be successful in any of these matches. None of these teams will give us points so we will have to earn points. I think if you are going to play high caliber ball you want to push yourself to the limit of what you can do. Our idea of scheduling is that we are going to play an aggressive schedule because we feel we belong there. I hope we will continue to improve and take what we learned last week and build on that this weekend and of course hope that we will play better the following weekend.”
In the first match against Northern Iowa on Friday, the Bluejays get to face a former foe that gave them fits while in the Valley. Northern Iowa had dominated the Bluejays for several years with a 40-5 series lead, but Creighton won the last two meetings in their final year in the Valley. The Panthers returned to the top of the MVC last season with a 23-8 record and shared the MVC regular season title. UNI earned wins over Saint Louis and Southeast Missouri State last weekend, but lost to Alabama.
Saturday promises to be a grinder, as Creighton will face two top 25 teams. Their first ever meeting against No. 6 USC will take place at 10 a.m. It was actually Creighton and the Trojans that put this series together.
“USC initiated it and then we reached out to a couple of other teams,” said Booth. “We looked at one other team that could do it, but UNI and Kentucky were eager to jump in when we talked to them. The other team we talked to was eager to do it, but didn’t have the scheduling since we wanted to do it the second weekend.”
USC is off to a 3-0 start after wins over Arkansas-Little Rock, Rider, and a tough Pacific team. They are expected to finish second in the Pac-12 this season; 9 schools from that league in the top 25 to start the season. With four starters returning and last year’s Elite Eight experience, this will be a tall order for the Bluejays.
In the Saturday nightcap, the Bluejays will take on No. 16 Kentucky. This will also be their first ever meeting. The disadvantage here is that Creighton will be guests on the Wildcats’ home court. Kentucky only lost one set last weekend going 3-0 against another former MVC foe Wichita State and current CU Big East counterpart Butler. Kentucky also posted a 3-1 victory over Virginia Tech. The Wildcats are hosting their second invite in as many weeks.
This weekend looks to be a great opportunity for the Creighton volleyball team to hop back into the top 25 and to create some good resume victories. Booth believes they need that winning mentality to succeed.
“I don’t think it was nerves to play, but we didn’t perform an end game like we needed to. I don’t know if it was nerves or what but we have to have a confidence that ‘Hey this is where we want to be, 23-23, we want to close it out.’ So that is an area of emphasis for sure.”
The big test will be to see if that emphasis in practice shows at the games this weekend, again on the road. The Bluejays will open the home portion of their season next weekend at the Bluejay Invitational.
NOTES:
- Freshman Toni Tupper also made her debut along with Wilkinson last weekend.
- Booth announced that CU will redshirt Brittany Lawrence this season.
- This series will continue in Cedar Falls next season, Los Angeles in 2016, and then in Omaha in 2017.
- Maggie Baumert is the only Creighton player to have experience against Kentucky. She played in 14 sets against the Wildcats as a part of the Georgia volleyball team the previous two seasons.
- The 13 matches scheduled this month are the most in any month for Bluejay Volleyball since 2006 where they went 10-3.
- Saturday night’s match against Kentucky will be available as part of the new SEC Network+. Audio/video of the game can be accessed here if you have the SEC Network through your cable/satellite provider. This is on their online portal related to ESPN3.