All year long the Creighton volleyball team has tried to prove they belong among the nation’s elite teams. On Friday afternoon they took one step closer to doing just that with a (22-25, 25-14, 25-22, 26-24) victory in the first round of the 2013 NCAA Tournament over an Arkansas Razorback squad that refused to quit fighting back even when it seemed like the Bluejays were about to go on cruise control.
“I’m very proud of our team, very proud of our season,” said Arkansas head coach Robert Pulliza. “Obviously I’m disappointed. I thought we could have played better today, but a lot of that was because of Creighton and the things they were doing.”
Creighton came storming out of the gates offensively, sporting a .400 attack percentage early on as they built a 10-5 lead in the opening set. Like they would do for the majority of the match, Arkansas battled back after a timeout to regroup. They tied the match at 16-all, and later used a 4-1 run to break a 19-19 tie and take command of the set. Junior outside hitter Meredith Hays finished off the Jays with her fourth kill of the game to give the Razorbacks a 25-22 victory and 1-0 lead in the match.
Not to take credit away from the Arkansas rally, but Creighton head coach Kirsten Bernthal Booth thought her team tightened up in the first set loss.
“I thought our nerves set in kind of midway through game one. When Arkansas made that run I thought we got tentative,” Booth said.
After building the early lead with it’s offense and seeing the lead slip away, the Jays decided to let their defense dictate the match — and did it ever. Arkansas hit .394 and committed just three attack errors in the first set. They would finish the match with 30 as Creighton quickly changed that good fortune, setting up a strong block in front of an active back row. As a result the Razorbacks committed seven attack errors on Creighton’s first 11 points of the second game as the Jays burst out to a 12-1 lead, forcing Arkansas to use both of their timeouts during the run as the Bluejays took control of the match.
“After game one we just challenged them to relax,” Booth said. “I thought our blocking really was the difference in taking over the match.”
Creighton had zero blocks in the first game, but finished with 6.5 in the second set as they cruised to a 25-14 victory to even the match before intermission.
The third set was highly competitive in the beginning, with each team trading points before a 6-0 run by the Bluejays gave them a 15-10 advantage and broke the set open for them. Arkansas would try to rally, but couldn’t get closer than three points. True freshman Jess Bird finished off a set from junior Michelle Sicner to give Creighton a 2-1 match lead. Entering the day, Creighton was 9-0 on the year when winning the third set to break a 1-1 tie.
With their season on the line, Arkansas took over midway through the fourth set and after a rare attack error by Kelli Browning the Razorbacks seemed to be on their way to forcing a winner-take all fifth set as they took a 23-19 lead.
Creighton called their final timeout and, according to Browning, received a simple, yet key wake-up call from their sophomore libero Kate Elman.
“She just said,’let’s finish this in four,'” Browning recalled. “We knew we had to put up a big block to do that, and our defense needed to work hard behind us.”
A service error by Hays and a kill by Bird brought the Jays within 23-21. After an Arkansas timeout, a block by Browning and Bird brought the Jays within one. The Razorbacks answered with a kill to create a set point opportunity at 24-22, but the Bluejay defense wasn’t done leaving it’s mark on this match. Another block, this time by Browning and Leah McNary followed a Browning kill to tie the set. McNary then got a kill of her own to give Creighton match point, and Sicner finished it off with her sixth block of the match to send the Jays into the 2nd round of the NCAA Tournament for the third time in the last four years.
Those runs in the tourney have all ended in the second round, however, and the Jays’ goal all season long has been to go farther than they’ve been before.
“We have that goal written up in our locker room that we see every day,” Browning said. “Even before this game we said let’s show what we’ve been working for all year. This win was so great, and Arkansas’ a great team, but we’re ready for the next game.”
The message shared by all players and coaches in the week leading up to the NCAA Tournament was that they could still get better even as their season is now in the survive and advance stage. Despite this first round victory, that mindset has not changed.
“I think we can play better,” Booth said. “Volleyball is a game of errors. We did a lot of good things tonight, but I look at a couple positions and see that they didn’t have their best night, and I know what they’re capable of doing.”
Though they are still striving to improve, McNary believes they aren’t far off from the level they need to be at in order to make a deep run.
“A key point is peaking at the right time, and I feel like we are,” she said. “We have a special team, and I think we can go far in the tournament if we play together and work hard.”