Brittany Witt will leave Creighton as the all-time digs leader (Juszyk / WBR)
As some Creighton players filed into D.J. Sokol Arena, suitcases in tow, on Sunday afternoon they were congratulated on a great match and a great season by the people they passed on the way to the locker room. They acknowledged the compliments with half-hearted smiles that were quickly replaced by blank expressions once their faces were out of view. The Bluejay volleyball program has won seven regular season conference titles, six conference tournament championships, 11 NCAA Tournament matches, and advanced to two Sweet 16’s and one Elite 8 this decade alone. While there exists some pride in going down swinging, which the Jays did on Saturday night in their five-set, season-ending loss to No. 7 Minnesota, it doesn’t serve to mask any of the pain until later on down the road.
“It was devastating,” head coach Kirsten Bernthal Booth said. “We were devastated. It hurts. It still stings. But we talk so much about our process of we’re going to go for it and let the chips fall and that’s what we did. As much as it hurts, I can’t tell you how proud I am of the way that they went after it. We didn’t lose because we got passive. We took some great swings that just didn’t fall our way in the fourth game to win it. This team prided itself on doing the process right and they did everything right last night against a very good team that got us in the end. Once the pain goes away — and it will, because that’s part of sport — I think we’ll look back and rationally understand that there is so much to be proud of.”
Madelyn Cole was a constant force for the Jays all season at setter, keeping opponents guessing (Juszyk / WBR)
Like seven of their previous eight second round matches in the NCAA Tournament, the Bluejays dropped set one to the Golden Gophers on Saturday night in front of a crowd of just over 4,000 fans at Maturi Pavilion in Minneapolis. Unlike those previous seven set-one losses, Creighton got crushed in this one. Minnesota out-hit CU .281 to .023 and held the six-time reigning Big East regular season champs to their lowest point total for a single set all season in a 25-13 win that gave the regional hosts a 1-0 lead in the match.
At that point it would be easy for anyone to start to believe that the home team was in for an easy night. However, none of those people were sitting on the opposing bench. The Bluejays returned the favor in the second set by holding a physical and balanced Gopher offense to an .025 attack percentage on 40 swings, then watched the right arm of sophomore outside hitter Jaela Zimmerman tally three kills down the stretch of a 25-19 set-two win that even the match at one set apiece going into intermission.
Creighton carried over the momentum of that comeback into the third set as reigning Big East Freshman of the Year Keeley Davis had seven of her team’s 14 kills and one of their three aces in a 25-15 wipe-out that gave CU a 2-1 match lead. After hitting just .023 in game one, the Bluejays terminated at a .270 clip in the third set, committing just four attack errors on 37 swings.
“I think they pride themselves on fighting,” Booth said of how her team was able to overcome a lopsided result in game one. “They talk about being tough and in no situation are they going to give up or roll over. I thought in game one we just got beat on some situational stuff that we had talked about and showed them in scout, but they needed to see it live so they could adjust to it. They hit a lot of shots, not necessarily with power all of the time, and we weren’t balanced and weren’t ready for it. I do think sometimes there is a benefit to getting beat badly in a first game as opposed to a tight loss, because it maybe can give the other team a sense of calm and you can raise your level, and I think you saw that.”
Megan Ballenger stopped everything at the net for the Jays. (Juszyk / WBR)
The fourth set was a bit of slog as some tired legs and arms swinging away for the second match in as many night, combined with some tightness due to sense of urgency on both sides, resulted in a total of 17 attack errors along with four combined errant serves. Creighton had 17 kills compared to just eight for the Golden Gophers, but 12 attack errors by the Jays made it a back-and-forth affair with neither side holding a lead of more than three points. Still, Creighton made some big plays down the stretch with senior middle blocker Megan Ballenger tying the match at 22-all with a kill, then Zimmerman followed up with one of her own before Ballenger teamed up with senior setter Madelyn Cole for a block on the right side of the net to give the Bluejays match point at 24-22.
Minnesota didn’t lay down, though. After calling their second timeout in as many points, the Golden Gopher set up a double block in front of Zimmerman to pull save the first match point. Ballenger sent a ball just wide down the right sideline to even things up. CC McGraw aced the ensuing serve to give her team a 25-24 lead, then after a Creighton timeout, Minnesota blocked stuffed Zimmerman again to complete the rally and win the set, 26-24, forcing a fifth and final game for a trip to the Sweet 16 and a date with No. 10 Florida in Austin, Texas.
Creighton started the fifth set in a 1-0 hole before the ball was even put in play due to a lineup infraction that was issued prior to the start of the set. Despite tallying three kills and a block, including a big one of each late, during the penultimate set, Megan Ballenger was having trouble catching her breath and had to be examined in the locker room prior to game five. That led to some doubt as to whether she would be available at all for the fifth game.
“Before the fifth game Megan had a medical issue that had been ongoing in the fourth game and to start the fifth game our athletic trainer said she’s not going to be able to play in the fifth game. So we put a lineup together moving Annika Welty to the middle and we were going to put Kiana Schmitt on the right side. We’re discussing that and trying to make sure that Megan is for sure out, because at this point she’s in the athletic training room being seen by a doctor and they are checking her vitals. We are about to turn the lineup in and I’ve already hit a delay, the three-minute mark is up, and Megan comes out and goes onto the court.
“At that point [the official] is telling me I’ve got to turn it in because you’ve already gotten a delay and if you don’t turn it in right now you’re getting a point penalty. I said I can’t turn it in because I have to switch my lineup. She said I could do a sub, but I couldn’t sub because they were in the wrong spots because I was moving Annika. So I had to rewrite the lineup out, thus I got two delays of game, which caused the point penalty.”
Keeley Davis (6) and Jaela Zimmerman (7) established themselves as the leaders for the 2020 season (Juszyk & Spomer / WBR)
The point didn’t end up proving costly as Creighton quickly settled into another see-saw battle with Minnesota that featured seven ties and two lead changes in the first 16 points. The final lead change went in favor of the Golden Gophers, and they eventually used a 5-1 run to turned an 8-8 tie into a 13-9 advantage and put them on the doorstep of their 10th Sweet 16 appearance in the last 11 years. They sealed the deal with a kill by Stephanie Samedy and a solo block by Regan Pittman.
In the loss, Keeley Davis finished with a match-high 18 kills and a career-high 18 digs. Zimmerman added 17 kills, 13 digs, and two aces. Creighton also got strong performance from their three active seniors. Megan Ballenger ended her career with a seven-kill, four-block night; Madelyn Cole dished out a match-high 44 assists to go along with 15 digs and five kills; and libero Brittany Witt anchored the back row with a match-best 26 digs, the second of which helped her pass Kate Elman to become Creighton’s all-time career leader in digs.
She would surely trade all 2,079 of them in return for a win on Saturday night and another guaranteed week as a collegiate volleyball player, but in the face of her Creighton career coming to an end she could at least smile for a second and be proud that she and her teammates went down swinging.
“Losing that first set 25-13 can really knock a team down, and I think just the way that we came back and knew that we were a good team and resilient — it was an awesome way to go down. We were fighting and we went for every point, and I couldn’t be prouder of our team to turn around and be resilient and take it to five sets. It’s tough losing, but if there was a way to do it this was definitely the way to go down.”