The Creighton volleyball team is coming off a disappointing loss to Drake over the weekend. The loss dropped the team to No. 40 in the NCAA’s official RPI rankings, putting them, as seems to be the case more often than not recently, squarely on the NCAA Tournament bubble with half the conference schedule in the book.
The Jays (12-7, 7-2 MVC), who have won nine of their last 11 matches and are still tied for second place in the Missouri Valley Conference standings, are away from home for the second straight week as they head to Bradley (Friday, 7 p.m.) and No. 14 Northern Iowa (Saturday, 7:30 p.m.), two teams at opposite ends of the Valley. The Braves are in last, still looking for their first conference victory, while the Panthers sit atop the league, still without a conference loss.
White and Blue Review caught up with head coach Kirsten Bernthal Booth before the team left on Thursday.
White & Blue Review: Let’s start last weekend at Drake. It seemed like senior outside hitter Allie Oelke and senior defensive specialist Nayka Benitez didn’t have their best matches. What else happened?
Kirsten Bernthal Booth: First of all, Drake’s a very good team, and I’m not just saying that. Numbers-wise, they’re a very good team. We struggled serving and passing — the two you mentioned struggled, but other people struggled also. We out-hit them [Ed. note — Creighton had been 126-6 under Booth when posting a better hitting percentage than the opposition], we out-dug them, we out-blocked them. We did all those things, so where we lost was the serve and pass game.
WBR: Your team is the only one in the Valley with three players in the top ten in digs per set. Are you satisfied with your defense to this point, especially compared with last year when your team struggled defensively at times?
KBB: I don’t know if you ever use the word satisfied because I don’t think you can ever stay stagnant in any area, but there’s no question that we’re a tenacious team. We play hard in the back row, and that’s been an area that we’ve taken a lot of pride in this year, as has our serving and passing. That’s why I’m hoping that Saturday night was an anomaly. That’s an area that we’ve been great at, so hopefully it was just an off night.
WBR: Sophomore setter Megan Bober is the only player in the country averaging more than 10 assists (10.03) and one block (1.01) per set, and she has led all setters in blocks per set each of the last two years. Could you talk about her this year compared to last year, her first on the court?
KBB: I think last year Megan had the makings of a great setter, and I think this year she’s become a great setter. I think she’s much more confident, her touch has gotten better. Last year, she was a great blocker, too, so that was an area she already excelled in, but where I think she’s really taken a lot of steps is I think she’s a better leader this year. I think her defense is better and I think she’s setting a better ball. I mean, I think she’s improved a lot of different areas of her game.
WBR: Heading into the second half of the conference season, what are the things that you still need to work on most?
KBB: Offensive consistency still needs to get better. Each player has to take responsibility for that, and the setter needs to make sure we’re getting good balls up. And I always think so much of a team’s success is predicated on the serving and passing, so that’s got to be something that we continue to get batter at, even though I think that’s a strength of ours. We’re going to play a lot of close matches, and we need to continue to step up. I think this team has shown a lot of tenaciousness, so hopefully that will continue to be the case.
WBR: Bradley and Northern Iowa this weekend — what do you have to do different against UNI this time around, and what challenges will Bradley pose?
KBB: First of all, we’ve got to make sure we take care of Bradley. I think it’s easy to say Bradley’s at the bottom of the conference, UNI’s at the top, so the tendency is to want to look ahead, which I think can bite you really quickly. Everyone in the league is strong, so we’re going to have to be ready to play Friday night. Northern Iowa — as strong as I think we are defensively, I think they’re a step above us, so we’re going to have to match them defensively. We’re going to have to serve really well — last time we played them, they were in system too much, and that’s a testament to how good they are passing-wise, so we’re going to have to try and take them out of system. I think that physically we match up with them. We’re just going to have to play a great match. Obviously, it’s on their home court in front of a rowdy crowd. We’ll see how we respond.