If you ask Creighton head volleyball coach Kirsten Bernthal Booth what her team focused on during the spring season, she will tell you that they worked on a lot of individual things. That is true, but from the outside, you can see that she is also getting ready to reload and sees the opportunity to capitalize on last season’s 29-4 record and become a top contender in the new Big East.
“I guess a major thing was to get a new setter incorporated. Obviously Michelle (Sicner) has been in the program for two years, she is a great setter and sets a fair amount. But she is still getting in rhythm, particularly with our middles, and that has been a primary focus,” said Bernthal Booth.
The Bluejays spent the better part of April finding out that they could be just as good in 2013 as they were this past season. They went 2-1 during the spring season. The Jays split two matches with South Dakota State (win) and Iowa State (loss). But the jewel of the spring was an exciting 3-2 victory at Nebraska, in what might have been the final scheduled volleyball event in the NU Coliseum. The Huskers are a power each season. While it was only an exhibition win over a rebuilding Huskers team, it still felt like a regular season game.
“From the get go, Nebraska, and I actually see the benefits of this, set it up as a match. Usually in the spring if you want extra time outs, if you want to sub randomly, or do whatever, it usually goes. But when we got to Nebraska the officials said they were running it like a fall match. You only have two timeouts. If you run out of subs, you run out of subs. It definitely had a different feel than the usual spring matches. I think it was good and a great experience that will pay dividends in the fall.”
Sicner takes over the setter role in 2013 (Spomer/WBR)
Beyond the matches, the bigger part of the spring season is developing players in an environment that is not as easy to do during the regular season. Take Kelli Browning for example.
Coach Bernthal Booth and her staff worked with Browning to see if they could build some growth between her freshman and sophomore seasons. Through a combination of their work and her diligence in the offseason, Browning finished with a Creighton and MVC record in block assists in a season, she was fifth in the nation in blocks per set, and she earned first team All-MVC honors. During this offseason heading into 2013, the question is “who is next to break out?”
The first choice might be Sicner. She will head into her junior season with the opportunity to settle back into the setter role that she dominated in during her high school years at Millard North. Sicner has been a jack-of-all-trades type of player that was a part of a 6-2 offense her freshman season as the second setter and last season strictly played an outside hitter role. But with Megan Bober finishing a decorated career, Sicner will be handed the keys to the Creighton offense with an opportunity to pick up where Bober left off.
“She has been great and has done a fantastic job. She has been dying to get back to setting. Hitting is not something she enjoys, nor wants to do. She has been waiting for her opportunity to spend all of her time setting. With that said, she always still came to setter training. We obviously knew she would be setting this year so we wanted to keep her ready to go and she has done a great job.”
Leah McNary could be the other breakout player. While she made strides last year as a sophomore, McNary still has a lot of potential to be even more dominant next season. Her ability to jump out of the gym is something that teams can’t necessarily prepare for. Even Nebraska head coach John Cook gave McNary a lot of praise after the Bluejays victory over the Huskers with her ability to hang in the air longer than most players to decide where she wants to hit the ball.
“I treated it as fall game because I remember the first time I ever got to play was at Nebraska,” said McNary. “It brought me back to that time. I just think it was cool to be able to be in a place where it was packed out and a game atmosphere so we can show people what we are about this year.”
Bernthal Booth noted how they have been working with her this spring and her development as a player.
“Leah had a great spring, too. I think she is just continually developing more and more poise to be able to consistently play. Leah is one of those players that if she can play consistently the way that we see a fair amount of time, which I feel like she did for the most part this spring, she can dominate matches.”
McNary commented on her spring workouts:
“I worked a lot on defense to work on my defensive skills and to not just be an attacker. It is pretty cool that even though the seniors have left that we still have a strong team. We definitely rely on each other to be able to do well in the spring.”
While Sicner and McNary were discussed at length, Bernthal Booth also took the time to evaluate the rest of the roster and their spring season results. Injuries and illnesses kept the team on their toes.
- Ashley Jansen: Had a great spring. One thing to note was that her serve/receive has really improved quite a bit.
- Kate Elman: Had a great spring.
- Katie Neisler: Continued to do well in the back row. She stepped up and played big in the front row against Nebraska and really proved to the staff that she could do a great job if she wanted to battle for an outside position.
- Kelli Browning: Continuing to build off of her amazing sophomore season.
- Savannah Smith: She has done a nice job in the middle. If she was thrown into it, she would do a great job.
- Lauren Smith: She will battle with Savannah Smith for that other middle position. She suffered a concussion earlier in the spring, but has continually progressed.
- Melanie Jereb: She was recently diagnosed with mononucleosis, so she was not able to participate as much in spring ball. The staff broke down her arm swing earlier this spring and she is hitting with more power.
- Lizzy Stivers: She had some shoulder problems this spring and was limited in her participation. They continue to really key on her serve since she has a “wicked” serve.
Marquette and Creighton could easily be considered the favorites in the Big East in 2013. The Bluejays have another golden opportunity to keep the program on the rise with another trip to the NCAA Tournament.
“The great thing about the Big East is the prestige that it brings,” said coach Booth. “I hope it gets us in the door with some kids that maybe like the idea of saying that they play in the Big East. The places we will go are attractive to a lot of kids. We will get to go see some of the coolest cities in the country and yet still all of the things that are great about Creighton volleyball remain the same.”
Scheduling Update
Bernthal Booth talked to us at length about the schedule for the 2013 season. Unfortunately, the big question marks still surround the conference schedule and how that will be played out, where to hold a tournament (if they do have one), when to have the tournament and several other factors as the league tries to get things put together.
One thing for sure is that there will be nine teams in the league with Providence not joining them in volleyball, at least for now. The Friars program does not fully fund their volleyball program and until they can get things up to speed with the rest of the schools, they will continue to compete in the America East conference. So at least in the short term there will be only the nine Big East teams playing volleyball.
With the extra weekend available and to bolster the strength of schedule, Bernthal Booth turned to a former MVC rival Wichita State. The Shockers will be hosting a big tournament that will include perennial power Hawaii along with the Jays and some other teams. It could turn out to be a big weekend.
Creighton joining the Big East sort of took the bite out of a tournament the Bluejays were participating in at Bowling Green. The field also includes new conference foe Marquette. The setup has changed around a bit where the two schools will not meet each other there as previously planned and Creighton will play only two matches instead of three that weekend.
In addition to that tournament, the Volleyball twitter account tweeted recently that the Bluejays will also be taking on Cal (which will be part of the Bluejay Invitational to kick off the season), UCLA and BYU, all teams that are known for their good volleyball programs.
Of course another topic was the scheduling of Nebraska in the future for the Jays. They will not be playing each other this fall, but it is possible that Creighton could get on the schedule in 2014 according. Nebraska head coach John Cook is not shy about playing tough matches.
“I think the Big Ten schedule with 11 teams has less dates and we have not been a priority in the scheduling,” said Bernthal Booth. “I hope that with us continuing to improve as a program we become more of a priority. With that said, I think in 2014, they go to East-West scheduling since they will add a few teams so that he may have more dates. He has indicated to me that he thinks we can play in ’14. I hope that ends up being the case. I think it would be great for both programs in the state.”
Recruiting News
The volleyball staff has been busy recently getting verbal commitments from a few players that are still a year or two away from joining the program.
- Bernthal Booth received a commitment from 2015 Ankeny, Iowa, hitter Megan Ballenger. The to-be-junior was the Des Moines Register player of the year after hitting .261 with 3.68 kills per set and 2.6 blocks during her sophomore season.
- This past week, the Jays received a commitment from Lincoln Northeast hitter Toni Tupper. The a 6-3 to-be senior is a Super-Stater in volleyball, a basketball standout, and state champion in track — the shot put of all things.
- Joining Tupper in 2014 will be Marysa Wilkinson from Lincoln Southwest. The 6-1 middle blocker committed verbally to the Jays last fall. Tupper and Wilkinson will play together this spring on a club team.