After playing catch-up for most of the first half the Creighton women’s basketball team finally strung together enough stop-and-score possessions to gain some separation in a 65-54 home win over last-placed Xavier on Friday night.
In front of a D.J. Sokol Arena crowd of 1,002 who showed up for the Jays annual “Pink Game”, they saw senior guard Sydney Lamberty take over the final seven minutes to break open what was, at the time, only a one-point affair. After Xavier senior forward Anniina Aijanen hit a pair of free throws for her first and only points of the night to cut Creighton’s lead to 51-50 with 7:05 to play, Lamberty answered by scoring seven of the Jays next 13 points, dishing out an assist, and forcing a jump-ball that gave possession back to her team with 2:05 left on the clock.
“I had seen ‘Liv’ get on the floor, Audrey dive for a ball, and Jaylyn get her hands on some balls, so it was just kind of an infectious thing,” Lamberty said of her sense of urgency down the stretch. “I needed to get a steal or something on defense and it kind of led to the offensive side, too.”
The rest of the game wasn’t as smooth-sailing for the Bluejays as that final stretch, however. The Musketeers (9-18 overall, 2-14 Big East) forced five turnovers and held Creighton to 3-of-15 shooting in building a 12-7 lead at the end of the 1st quarter. Xavier came out guns blazing in the 2nd quarter, hitting their first six shots from the field to push the lead to 27-18 with 5:01 left in the opening half.
Defensively, the Bluejays were trying to switch all of Xavier’s dribble-weave action, but a lack of communication led to some sizeable gaps for ball-handlers to attack on the lane line extended.
“We were supposed to be switching everything, but we were also helping off of some people so the spacing was weird,” sophomore wing Jaylyn Agnew said.
Olivia Elger heated things up for the Jays down the stretch (Williams / WBR) $CLICK TO BUY$
Fortunately for the Jays, Xavier cooled off just as Olivia Elger was heating up. The redshirt sophomore guard scored eight of Creighton’s next 12 points, banging a couple threes to go along with a pull-up jumper in the lane just before the buzzer to pull her team within two points at the break. She led all players with 11 points in the first half, all of them coming in the final five and a half minutes of the 2nd quarter.
“‘Liv’ obviously was big in the first half,” Creighton head coach Jim Flanery said. “If we don’t have her in that first half it could’ve been a lot different of a gap, because we didn’t have anybody else going.”
Both teams exchanged leads in the first few minutes of the 3rd quarter, but Lamberty buried a 3-pointer to spark a 10-0 run that eventually gave Creighton the lead for good with 7:32 remaining in the period. Xavier was able to pull within one possession four times the rest of the way, but they never could answer any of their stops with a bucket or any of their buckets with a stop.
“I liked our position at that point to be on the road and have an opportunity going down the stretch,” Musketeers head coach Brian Neal said. “But Creighton is such a disciplined, skilled team that if you aren’t on point they punish you, and we were not on point. We had multiple breakdowns with scout stuff and position stuff, and they got easy buckets and wide open threes.”
The decisive blows landed by Creighton’s senior leader featured a reverse layup to make it 53-50, an assist to make it 57-52, a 3-pointer to push it 60-52, then a steal and a mid-range jump shot to make it 64-52. It was a 13-2 run over a four-minute, seven-possession stretch, and the Musketeers had no answer for it.
Lamberty finished with a team-high 13 points and dished out a game-high nine assists. Agnew and Elger each chipped in 12 points, while junior forward Audrey Faber added 10 to round out Creighton’s quartet of double-figure scorers on the evening. The win was the sixth in the last eight games for the Jays. All eight have featured single-digit leads or deficits in the 4th quarter, and three have gone to at least one overtime period.
None of the previous seven, however, have rattled the Bluejays, and Friday night was no different.
“I don’t know what it is,” Lamberty said. “I just have this feeling that we just all want it so bad. You can feel that energy in the 4th quarter that we don’t want to lose and we’re not going to lose. Everyone just comes together. I don’t even know what it is.”
What it is for now is a 16-9 overall record and a 10-5 mark in Big East play, which moves them into a tie with Villanova for third place in the standings with three regular season games remaining. The Bluejays will return to the floor on Sunday afternoon when they host Butler. Tip-of is scheduled for 1:00 p.m. with Senior Day ceremonies for Aimee Rischard, Bailey Norby, Kylie Brown, Myah Mellman, and Sydney Lamberty taking place immediately following the game.