Taryn Kloth got things started for the Bluejays on Friday night (Streur / WBR) CLICK TO BUY
With a record of 2-4 going into Friday night’s match against TCU in the Bluejay Invitational, you would think that the preseason ranked Creighton volleyball team was struggling out the gate this season. In reality, the losses consisted of three, 5-set thrillers that were winnable and a missed opportunity against another ranked opponent. After suffering one of those five-set losses against Kansas on Thursday night, the Bluejays bounced back to sweep the Horned Frogs in straight sets–25-19, 25-23, and 25-20 on Friday night at DJ Sokol Arena to move their record to 3-4 on the season.
“It feels good to win. I think we all needed a win,” said head coach Kirsten Bernthal Booth. “With that said, we try to make sure that the players are understanding that we are improving. We played a really good match last night. I think tonight kind of shows us our rigorous schedule pays dividends.”
The Bluejays came out on Friday night focused and ready to play from the start. Creighton jumped out to a 6-1 lead in the first set behind outside hitter Taryn Kloth at the net and behind the service line. The Horned Frogs were out of system for most of the first set as the Bluejays were able to get around the height of TCU placing the ball in the best spots while TCU also struggled with their hitting. When Kloth wasn’t hitting her 6 kills in the first set, Jaali Winters took over with 5 of her own. The balanced attack continued with some sneaky sets from Lydia Dimke that ended up as kills and middle blocker Lauren Smith getting in a couple of her own. The Bluejays hit .469 in the first set with the decisive victory and headed down the right track.
“I was really pleased with our offensive efficiency tonight,” said coach Booth. “To hit .350 against a really good TCU team is impressive.”
Kloth, the sophomore out of Sioux Falls, was thrust into the starting lineup the past couple of games and has delivered. Her success in the first set carried over to the second set as she served the first five points to help the Bluejays jump out to a 6-1 lead. However, the Horned Frogs fought back this time to get 6 of the next 8 points to and eventually tied things up at 9 causing a back and forth battle before two more serves, including a kill during one rally, from Kloth behind the line and a kill by Winters put the Bluejays up 16-13 looking like they would pull away. Again, TCU battled back to tie it up at 16.
Wilkinson came up with key kills during stretches where TCU tried to come back (Spomer / WBR) CLICK TO BUY
While the focus of the Jays offense appears to be centered on Kloth and Winters, it was junior Marysa Wilkinson that was the closer for the second set. Wilkinson got a kill to make it 21-20 causing TCU to take a timeout. After TCU tied it up again, Wilkinson put down the next two balls to force TCU to take their second timeout of the set at 23-21. After consecutive side-outs to make it 24-23, Winters closed things out with a kill assisted by a blocking error on TCU. The Bluejays went into the break 2-0 and had all the confidence in the world.
The fast start by the Bluejays was important to coach Booth. “I felt like last night was so emotional. They put out so much physically and mentally. I don’t think I even told them, but their character was going to be displayed tonight. This was a team that was going to dig deep and play well, or roll over against a good team. I’m really pumped about the way they came out and took care of things tonight.”
“We always collectively talk about flipping the switch right away,” said the sophomore Kloth. “In practice we have to focus and every point is worth something.”
“We always talk about little games to five.,” commented Wilkinson. “I think that is what helps us throughout the game. It isn’t just the end, it is the process to get to the end.”
Once the third set started, TCU looked like they were ready to give a challenge as both teams battled back and forth tied at 4 before Winters and Kloth put in a couple more kills and Dimke put another sneaky one of her own on the board to put the Bluejays up 7-4.
Dimke is continuing to get more comfortable in her role at setter handling 42 of the 50 assists in the victory. One stat that may alarm fans were her five service errors, three in the third set, along with Creighton’s 13 service errors for the game, but it is all part of the Bluejays aggressive serving mentality.
“I was disappointed with our serving in a sense that we missed a lot of serves,” said Booth. “But, a key component of our season has been aggressive serving. I’m sure fans were even more disgusted with the serving than we were, because we get the process of wanting to take them out of system. Against TCU, it was critical to get them out of system. There is so much offensive parity, if they are in system they terminate at a high rate because they can create a single block and they can go anywhere. We haven’t been typically been missing that many, but we want to take teams out of system with our serve.”
As the third set continued, the Bluejays pulled away with two more kills from Wilkinson to put them up 12-6. TCU battled back again for the next three points when Wilkinson again put an end to that to put the Bluejays up 13-9. From there, Creighton kept their lead, extending it at times, and finished things off with Jess Bird coming in to finish things up with three kills of her own, including two of the final three points for Jays, and they shut down Sokol Arena with a sweep. With so much talent on the team, it is easy to have a balanced attack.
“I think we are all amazing players and amazing hitters,” said Wilkinson. “When we are doing well it opens up other things. It is the passers and setters that help get us the kills.”
“You look at our distribution, and maybe it is a little heavy to the outside, but I think we are getting the ball to a lot of different players, ” commented Booth. “I think that will be an evolution with Lydia getting comfortable with things. I see her taking more risks each match, which we want to see happen. What we want to do is kind of what TCU does. We want to create parity, so that Taryn is getting a hole, Marysa is getting a hole because they don’t know where they are going and we also do that with Lydia dumping a lot. All of those things we are doing to create holes for our hitters and it is their job to put it down when that hole is there.
Winters finished with 13 kills to lead the Bluejays, while Kloth and Wilkinson knocked down 11 and 10 respectively. For the Bluejays the match against TCU closed out a stretch of twelve straight matches against teams that either went to the NCAA Tournament last season or are ranked or receiving votes in the top 25 this season. However, Creighton will still get a solid test on Saturday when they take on Chattanooga to close out the Bluejay Invitational
“We are going to have to be ready to play clean,” said Booth. “We have to put the ball down. Where KU ran into problems is they stopped getting in system and putting the ball down. If you don’t put it down, they will dig it back up and send it back at you.”
First serve at DJ Sokol Arena is set for Saturday at 7:00 p.m.
Photos from the match courtesy of WBR photographer Adam Streur
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