Jaali Winters heads into her Senior season ready to go. (Spomer / WBR)
Creighton’s coaching staff is going to have to make some difficult decisions this week when they decide what lineup they want to deploy for their regular season opener against Kentucky next Friday. And if they were hoping that an exhibition match against Kansas State would help expose some of weaker links, then that plan backfired as mostly everyone that Kirsten Bernthal Booth put out on the court looked more than ready for the bright lights of D-1 volleyball.
All-American senior Jaali Winters and Taryn Kloth each finished with 14 kills and attack percentage north of .300 as the Jays made it look easy in winning the first three sets before the Wildcats rallied late to win a bonus fourth set, 26-24. The home team took the first three games with scores of 25-17, 25-18, and 25-21. Creighton hit .337 through those first three sets while holding K-State to just a .212 clip before CU opted for an all-hands-on-deck approach against the opposing starters in game four. After the dust settled, eight different players finished with at least two kills, 11 players had at least three digs, and six players had at least one block.
“We are just so deep now,” Winters said after the match. “Every practice is so competitive. We all have that competitive drive because everyone wants to start. All of these players could start at any school … Coach recruits competitive girls and it’s been fun to see how much better we are getting every practice because of that competitiveness in each of us.”
For Creighton’s head coach, that drive was never more apparent than when defensive specialist Grace Nelson, a sophomore transfer from Ball State, made the extra effort on a ball that most players would concede and move on to the next point.
“I think they’ve got a tenacity about them defensively,” Booth said of her newest group. “They’re not really loud. I’ve had louder groups, but Grace is a great example. She hadn’t played much, then she comes in and makes a couple great plays. The one where she dove under the net was a really difficult ball that a lot of people would have let drop … we made a couple hustles plays tonight that we’ve been seeing in practice. I like the tenacity and the will. That’s sometimes hard to coach.”
Now with the regular season a few days away there will be two opposing forces in the gym as they seek to capture a fifth consecutive regular season conference title, a fifth consecutive conference tournament title, and a seventh consecutive bid to the NCAA Tournament. The first, according to Jaali Winters, is limitless potential:
“This team has so much potential,” she said. “It’s just so cool to be in the gym with these guys every day and see those moments and know that if we can put those moments together there really is no ceiling at all.”
Head Coach Kirsten Bernthal Booth has some tough decisions to make in the next week (Spomer / WBR)
The second, which can work against that notion if everyone doesn’t embrace the “we, not me” mantra, is that in a matter of days some talented, hard working players are going to be dealing with the reality that they got beat out for a spot in the starting lineup. It’s the part of the job as a head coach of the program for going on 16 seasons that Booth finds to be the most challenging.
“We spend a lot of time talking about it,” she said. “It’s hard. It’s hard. … sometimes you don’t get exactly what you want in life and it’s about how you respond to it. I have full faith that, yes, there are going to be people who are disappointed with the position they get as of next week, but with that said, everything is fluid. Maybe you work your tail off and get on the court, or maybe you work your tail off and you don’t, but I think we have high character young women that understand that the team is bigger than them. It’s bigger than everybody. I consider that the toughest part of the job, because sometimes players will take it as a personal thing, and it’s not personal. Whether you start or don’t start doesn’t dictate the way that I care about them as human beings, but we have to make decisions. I think we’ve got a mature group that understands that, and I’m hopeful and confident that they will handle it.”
Creighton opens its 2018 season out in Los Angeles at the Trojan Invitational. The Jays will kick things off against No. 5 Kentucky on Friday afternoon at 12:30 p.m., then face old MVC rival Northern Iowa later that night at 7:00 p.m. before concluding their opening weekend against No. 10 USC on Saturday at 9:30 p.m.