The midweek volleyball matchup between Creighton and Georgetown allowed head coach Kirsten Bernthal Booth to do some experimenting. It turned out to be successful as the Bluejays swept the Hoyas in straight sets, 25-17, 25-22, and 25-19 at DJ Sokol Arena on Tuesday night and extended their winning streak to six games and a 5-0 Big East mark.
Jess Bird and Jaali Winters both recorded double-doubles in the victory. Bird led the way with 15 kills and 16 digs while Winters backed Bird up with 11 kills and 10 digs. The Hoyas did not go away easily and actually made things a little tough for the Bluejays throughout the match.
The Hoyas came out swinging in the first set fighting tooth and nail to keep up with the Bluejays. The score was even at 7-7 before senior Ashley Jansen served six straight points forcing a Hoya timeout. After that, Creighton extended the lead little by little to get the up 20-13. It became a matter of time before the Bluejays rolled to the 25-17 victory in the first set.
The second set was similar, but the Hoyas took the offensive with the shorter team getting around the Creighton block with some hard swings and jumped out to a 4-1 lead. The Bluejays continued to work, gradually tying things up at 19. Jansen continued the great serving night with a couple of key points to get up 21-19, and then a critical kill from Lauren Smith gave the Jays a 23-21 lead. Errors by Georgetown allowed the Bluejays to take set two, 25-22.
After the break, the Bluejays came out on fire with Jansen serving the first two points of the set and then Bird went behind the line and served Creighton up to a 9-1 lead. The Hoyas turned things around to cut the lead to 11-9 and eventually 16-15 before the Bluejays were able to turn it on to pull away, again with Bird on the serving line and attack errors by the Hoyas to get the lead back up to 20-15. The Bluejays then rolled to sweep with the 25-19 win in set three.
Bird and Winters get the recognition with the stats, but there were key kills, ones that most would not want to be on the other end, by middle blocker Lauren Smith that really got the crowd involved and created turning points in the different sets. She finished with 6 kills and 4 blocks.
“Lauren is a phenomenal player,” said teammate Jess Bird. “A lot of times she will hold the block for us and we will get one block. It makes it so much easier to get kills. It is awesome to have great players so it can open holes for the rest of us and allows us to distribute things.”
While it seemed the Bluejays may have changed something during the break, Coach Booth said it wasn’t anything drastic. “No big scheme stuff. We talked about the things we needed to do better. Set three was the tale of two teams again. We played really clean ball early and they we had about 4 of 5 points where we had unforced error, unforced error, and let them back in. I agree we got some good rhythm in game three early, but the fact that we let them get within a point was really unacceptable especially considering the lead we had.”
“We gave up some runs on unforced errors,” said Booth on the win. “The idea that if the pass is bad the set has to be better or if the set is bad the attack has to be better. Sometimes we didn’t better the ball and we can do better than that. I thought there was more good than bad. We have to continue to improve to win the Big East.”
While Jansen had success from the serving line the whole match, it was the news before the match that got the senior highly involved from the start. Coach Booth decided to break out the 6-2 formation for the full match with Jansen and sophomore Kenzie Crawford sharing the setting duties, while senior Maggie Baumert had the opportunity to sit this one out. The versatility of this year’s squad allowed a little experimentation.
“I thought we did some really good things with the lineup that we literally threw out and handing it out on paper to Kenzie and Ashley yesterday,” said Booth, regarding the 6-2 look. “We really didn’t practice it we just talked about it.”
“It wasn’t our cleanest play,” said Jansen. “But we worked through it as a team, which is what I think is the most important part of tonight.”
While the Bluejays have sprinkled the 6-2 in here and there during the early part of the season, it wasn’t implemented for a full match until Tuesday night. With the Hoyas actually sitting last in the Big East with an RPI of 243, this was the perfect match to try something different.
“This is one of my favorite teams I have had at Creighton,” said Booth. “I think part of that is because they are just awesome people. If I said ‘Bird you are going to set tomorrow’ she would do it and be excited about it. Ashley’s response on Monday when she got the text saying, ‘Hey we are going to throw you in the set,’ she said ‘Bring it on.’ We just have attitudes that are going to do whatever they can to help out the team.”
Although there were some nerves during the match missing some connections to the Bluejay hitters, Jansen did well in her first start of the season at setter and most extensive playing time at the position this season. Jansen was a setter in high school and has done a little bit during her time at Creighton, but in most matches her primary focus was being a defensive specialist. The depth of the team allowed coach Booth to create an option that will help them during the long season.
“One of the things that is beneficial with the 6-2 is that you have an additional hitter option that makes it difficult to defend. We wanted to have good parity with our attack,” said Booth. “Jess got hot, so they were finding her a bit, but I thought Ashley did a great job. Ashley came in and she spends most of her time getting passing reps. For her to come in and not set too much this year, it is really a testament to her composure and her maturity. That was one thing that we knew she could do a great job. She could just command the court. Kelsey (O’Connell) came in and did a lot of great little things as part of the rotation”
The Bluejays now focus on their next opponent, DePaul, at home on Friday night. Even with an RPI of 172, no opponent is taken likely during conference play.
“DePaul is very similar to Georgetown as they have a couple great middles,” commented Booth on the Blue Demons. “They have a win over Xavier which is the team to beat in the Big East right now, so we will have our hands full on Friday. We are going to have to take them out of system. Their middles are really good, they have a good setter and a really good right side. We are going to need to be ready to go.”
Friday night’s game is the annual Pink Out contest for breast cancer awareness. Fans are encouraged to wear pink along with the team and cheer on the Bluejays. First serve at DJ Sokol Arena is set for 7:00 p.m.