Creighton volleyball opponents better watch out. There is a new leader in the MVC. The Bluejays are getting their brooms out lately sweeping away the competition, getting themselves more votes for the Top 25 and knocking on the door for their chance to get back to the NCAA Tournament.
The month of October has been a good one for head coach Kirsten Bernthal Booth and her team. They kicked off the month by knocking off Northern Iowa and ending the Panthers’ MVC winning streak of more than 3 seasons. They hope to end the month by beating Southern Illinois, the only team they lost to in the Valley race so far this season. In between they have been dominant during a three-game road trip that saw the Jays sweep Illinois State, Indiana State, and Drake in 9 sets. The win against the Bulldogs last weekend was a quick match.
“It is always good to get a sweep of Drake because we haven’t done it too much,” said Bernthal Booth. “I think we are playing pretty good volleyball. I didn’t think we played our best at Drake and Drake is struggling. We didn’t get in our own heads this year. It is a cross of all those things.”
On Friday night, the 18-3 Bluejays host Evansville to kick off the weekend at D.J. Sokol Arena. The Purple Aces are sitting at 8-16 on the season including 3-8 in conference play. They did sweep Missouri State last weekend but are 1-8 in true road games this season. But like Bernthal Booth has said all season, every game is important.
“Every match is critical. I don’t spend too much time looking ahead. Evansville and SIU are the focus and we will worry about who we have next weekend. That is our mentality.”
The first few years that assistant coach Tom Mendoza has been on the staff, he was able to help give the scouting report on Evansville since he was there before coming to Creighton. But now, Bernthal Booth says they have to prepare differently since many of the players he helped coach are not there anymore.
“Early on he could do the scouting report since he knew some tendencies and players. Tom’s experience at Evansville was very positive. He is a big fan of Mike Swan and really enjoyed his experience there. I can tell you Tom is definitely rooting for Evansville every match of the season other than when they are playing Creighton.”
On Saturday afternoon, in an early 4:00 p.m. match, the Creighton turns around and plays the Salukis, a totally different team than Evansville. SIU knocked off the Bluejays in Carbondale back on September 28. New head coach Justin Ingram has Southern Illinois at 17-5 on the season, and the Dawgs have three of the top five attackers in the league with Laura Thole, Alysia Mayes, and Jessica Whitehead. There is a little motivation for this weekend in the rematch.
“They are a really good team. They have a great middle and a solid outside,” said Bernthal Booth. “I don’t think we played our best and they exploited our weaknesses. We didn’t pass well that night. When you don’t pass well and have a lot of serving errors, those can lead to not winning matches. We knew we would have to play well to beat them and we will have to play well on Saturday to beat them.”
Everyone has contributed in different ways this season for the Bluejays. Megan Bober continues to direct the team. Creighton’s Kelli Browning has continued her spectacular season leading the Bluejays against Drake last weekend with 12 kills and 7 blocks. Kate Elman has stepped in at libero like a veteran. Everyone is playing their role. To have the chemistry they do right now and the tough home environment, this will be a great weekend for fans to come out to cheer on the team.
“We have some great leadership and chemistry. We always talk about how October makes or breaks your season. At the beginning of October we talked about how we have pieces, but the biggest thing we have is great chemistry. We have had really great practices again this week. This is when teams get better or worse. You really can’t stay the same so we have challenged the team. I can’t speak highly enough of our seniors and we now have some underclassman providing leadership in different ways too.”
As a part of Saturday’s match, Creighton will be recognizing breast cancer awareness and wearing pink uniforms like they did last weekend when they played at Drake. Their involvement has a personal connection with the ladies.
“It is an awareness night. The idea is to provide more information to people. We will have booths setup for getting checked and things about prevention. We have a player on the team who has a mom dealing with breast cancer so it hits close to home for the team. I think it is good chance for all of us to reflect on that we are so lucky to play a sport we love just for fun. There are so many bigger things than playing volleyball.”
Finishing October undefeated could be big for the final stretch run in November when they play four of their final six regular season matches on the road, including at Northern Iowa, Missouri State, and Wichita State.
NOTES:
- Fans are encouraged to wear pink for the match against SIU on Saturday at 4:00 p.m. to make the environment a “Pink Out.”
- If you can’t make it to Sokol Arena, both matches this weekend will be broadcast by Mighty 1290. You can follow Live Stats as well and also on your mobile device.
- With a win on Friday night against Evansville, the Bluejays can get their eight straight victory at home tying a school record. They can break the record with a win over SIU this weekend as well.
- Creighton got their 100th road victory in program history with the win over Drake last weekend.
- Kelli Browning is second in the nation in blocks per set (1.71). As a team the Bluejays are third in the nation in blocks per set (3.13).
- Heather Thorson leads the team in career kills against both Evansville (41) and Southern Illinois (48).