The Creighton Volleyball team didn’t have the case of the jitters on Friday night when playing their opener at DJ Sokol Arena, but it wasn’t their best performance. Although serving miscues and sometimes being taken out of system, the Bluejays got a win over Pepperdine in their first match at the Bluejay Invitational 25-22, 19-25, 25-20, 25-22 on Friday night.
“We did some great things and some things that were really poor,” said head coach Kirsten Bernthal Booth. “The great things were in system. We were clicking on all cylinders. I thought our defense, if we weren’t getting fooled on the block, I thought our defense made some great digs so that we could make a good transition.”
The Bluejays jumped out of the gate early in the first set 13-6 looking like they would run away with the set before Pepperdine rallied back to cut it to 13-10. Creighton then jumped out to extend the lead to 24-17 before the Waves held off set point five times behind three kills by Sophomore Gaby Palmeri. Kelli Browning then put down a kill to finally end the first set 25-22.
Miscues that hurt the Bluejays in the first set led to a very frustrating second set. After going back and forth early at 4-4, Pepperdine took the lead and never really looked back in that one. For Leah McNary, what were kills in the first set (6) turned into attack errors in the second set (6). The Bluejays also suffered in their serve game, with 5 service errors in that set. Head coach Kirsten Bernthal Booth tried everything including even substituting for McNary to try and settle things down. Eventually the Jays went down in the second set and into break tied at one set a piece. There were several things going on that Booth talked about that caused some troubles.
“In our serving we just made far, far too many errors. When we hit serves we did very well. Pepperdine passed to 1:8 which is a very good ratio for us. I thought our passing was suspect tonight. I think we have a great passing team but we have to be better. Pepperdine to their credit, put a lot of pressure on us and caused some of that.”
Creighton came out in the third set playing better and making their own adjustments. The match was back and forth throughout the early part of the match. But behind the home crowd and an amazing set of events by Maggie Baumert and Marysa Wilkinson to extend the lead 15-12, this is where everything turned around for the Bluejays.
Baumert went for a ball towards the sidelines to save it, running into the media table for the third time in the evening. The ball was sent to Wilkinson who bumped it across the court and over the net in front of the Pepperdine players for a point. Wilkinson also had a kill earlier in the match that went off the face of one of the Pepperdine players for a point. McNary also bounced back from her frustrating second set and grabbed a couple of kills of her own including the 1000th kill in her Creighton career to end the third set and put the Jays up 2-1.
Melanie Jereb and Kelli Browning came alive in the fourth set to help hold off a Pepperdine rally. This set was also back and forth throughout. Tied at 21, Browning and Jereb combined on kills for the final four points leading the Bluejays to victory.
A couple of the Bluejays had a pretty clean stat line for the night in middle blocker Lauren Smith and Wilkinson. They paced the Bluejays leading into the fourth set. They combined for 19 kills and 7 blocks while hitting .438 and .500 respectively.
“Maggie Baumert put up some really great sets,” said Smith. “I think that trusting that and swinging away at the ball is our job. It was really fun tonight.”
Smith said they will learn from the night’s experience heading into Saturday.
“It was our first home game. We were kind of nervous and had some jitters, but I think we played well. We got a win and it was really exciting to be out and show everyone what we have been working on.”
There were a lot of things that coach Booth thought they Jays could have done better, starting first with their serving.
“It is a balance that we challenge them to be more aggressive which I think they were, but we can’t make that many errors. We could have lost the match because of all the service errors. We missed way too many serves and that was a big part of what we talked about. It is a mix between some technical stuff that they have to be better at, focus as they have 8 seconds back there so take your time and make a good serve, and finding a balance of maybe going for too much. You have to be aggressive, but you can’t be too aggressive, so it is all of those different factors.”
Creighton plays their final two matches of the Bluejay Invitational on Saturday against Bowling Green (noon) and Wichita State (7:30 p.m.). Those teams played each other earlier in the night with Wichita State easily taking the first two sets. But Bowling Green came back to tied it at 2 sets apiece with two marathon matches winning 30-28 and 35-33. Wichita finally took the win in the fifth set 16-14. This caused the Creighton match against Pepperdine to start about 45 minutes later than the original 7PM start time. Creighton is hoping to win its first ever Bluejay Invitational championship on Saturday.
“Obviously we have things to work on that we saw,” said Smith. “But it is good to be able to come out the next day and fix those things and trust your teammates. We have great depth on our team, so I just thing tomorrow will be even better.”
Notes:
- Michelle Sicner was back with the team and in uniform for the Bluejays. Sicner was not with the team last weekend due to the death of her mother from colon cancer. She did not play on Friday night, but was actively cheering on her teammates.
- The reported crowd was 1326 and both Coach Booth and Lauren Smith commented on the great atmosphere in the building
- Coach Booth– “Great crowd. We appreciate everyone coming out. When Marysa made the awesome play over by the media table that was the diffrence in game three. It was kind of locked up then. We kind of pushed at that point and the crowd gave us great momentum at that time.”
- Smith– “It was a good turnout. It is really fun to see this many people. It is loud and the atmosphere is really wonderful after being away for so long. It is great to be back”
- Leah McNary wasn’t aware she was about to hit 1000 kills, but people in the stands did. She had a relative in the stands counting down how many were left and when she was at 999, she was waving her finger anticipating Leah hitting 1000. That kill ended the third set.
Photo Gallery
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