Last year down in Lawrence, Kansas, the Creighton and Lipscomb volleyball teams squared off to begin the 2014 regular season. The Bluejays came away with the win in four sets, but three of the games were decided by just two points and went beyond the 25 points normally needed to win.
Friday night’s rematch was a different story entirely.
Despite returning five starters, including the 2013 Atlantic Sun Conference Player of the Year in senior middle blocker Jewel Dobson, the Lady Bisons were buried by the Bluejays in three sets. Creighton got a successful result in their home opener for the fourth consecutive season behind a 25-19, 25-8, 25-18 dismantling of the visitors from Nashville, Tennessee.
The Bluejays (3-4) hit .341 for the entire match in a balanced effort led by 10 kills from freshman outside hitter Jaali Winters and senior middle blocker Lauren Smith’s eight kills on just 11 swings. Creighton also served one of their best games in a long time, dropping in seven aces versus only six errors, and got Lipscomb out of system throughout the match in turning in a near flawless performance in all phases of the game.
“I felt we dominated the match tonight,” Creighton head coach Kirsten Bernthal Booth said. “Lipscomb is a great team, that’s the thing. This is a team that has a lot of seniors, they earned an at-large bid last year. I thought we played the best we’ve played all season. We’ve really been talking to the team about consistency, we’ve had great points, but we haven’t been able to do it on a consistent nature. We’ll do something great then we’ll make a mistake. Tonight, and I would say against Kentucky last week, we really did a nice job of making the opposing team earn points as compared to giving them points.”
“The other thing that I thought was key, both tonight and last Saturday night, was our serving. We put pressure on them the entire time, and yeah our ace numbers look good, but more importantly they were out of system. One of our primary goals was to make their outside hitters have to carry a lot of load.”
Lipscomb’s outside hitters Brittnay Estes, Carlyle Nusbaum, and Lauren Anderson each had 19 total attacks on the evening, but committed nine errors as they combined to hit .088. As a team, the Lady Bisons (5-2) committed 20 attack errors and hit .062. A big reason was Creighton’s much improved block.
After the opening weekend the Creighton coaching staff has spent a considerable amount of time in practice trying to make progress at the net, and it showed on Friday night as they looked strong against Lipscomb attacks, especially in the second and third games.
“I thought in game one they were able to get through our seam, and that’s been a primary focus with our blocking is we have to protect the seam and make the hitters hit around us,” Booth said. “Ace blocks are great, which we got a lot. We got nine, so three per game, that’s a great stat. More importantly I thought we protected seam overall after game one, and then became difficult to defend around. I really trust our defense if people are hitting around the block, we’ve got great defenders back there. Where they can get kills is if they can tool in that seam, that’s just not a ball that you can really dig.”
The first set was the only game that remained somewhat competitive. The Lady Bisons hit .235 in the opening game and hung tight until Jaali Winters keyed a late 7-2 run with three kills to help Creighton open up a 24-17 lead before senior setter Maggie Baumert put the Bluejays up 1-0 in the match with a kill to end the first set.
Baumert started her second straight match, finishing with 32 assists, and distributing the ball evenly to her hitters to go along with four kills, four digs, and two blocks.
The second and third sets got out of hand in a hurry as Creighton opened up double digit leads midway through each game. Lipscomb had no answer in the second game, committing 10 attack errors and hitting an frigid -.261 against Creighton’s .467. The Lady Bison fought back late in the third set with the match on the line, but it was too little late on their end. It was a dominant performance at almost every point throughout the match.
“We were definitely locked in from the get-go,” Lauren Smith said. “We knew that Lipscomb was a very very good team, and we respect them a lot. Just kind of having the game plan, and increasing the communication in the front and the back row, I think we were just locked in and worked as a unit today.”
While the win is a great addition to Creighton’s NCAA Tournament resume, it won’t mean as much if they show up on Saturday and under-perform against what looks like an undermanned Cal State Bakersfield team as well as a finale match-up with a Pacific team that has a lot to prove after getting snubbed by the selection committee last winter.
The two played prior to the Creighton-Lipscomb match on Friday afternoon. Bakersfield struggled to receive serves as Pacific used 11 aces to pave the way to a 25-11, 29-27, 25-18 sweep of the Roadrunners.
“I thought we played a great match, but when we come back tomorrow it’s 0-0 again,” Creighton’s head coach said. “To be a great team we have to back it up. Bakersfield is a team that was in the NCAA Tournament last year, they’re kind of an undersized, scrappy team. Then Pacific is a team that’s got a big chip on their shoulder. They felt like they should’ve been in the tournament last year, most people think they were the first team out. They’re playing very well.
“Then you’ve got the Elman-Elman thing going on,” Booth added, referring to the match-up between sisters Lexi and Kate who helped lead Pacific and Creighton, respectively. “There is going to be a lot of energy I think with both games tomorrow. I’m not concerned this team won’t be ready, I think we’ve got great leadership, I think they get it. They understand the importance of each match. A win tonight with laying an egg tomorrow nullifies this from a resume standpoint for the NCAA Tournament, so we have to play every game like it’s our last. We need to build our resume, and I think we’ve got leadership and character to hopefully do that tomorrow.”