Kirsten Bernthal Booth’s club secured the Big East regular season crown for the 11th consecutive season last weekend on Senior Day. Two nights ago, they took down DePaul in four sets to make sure Marquette couldn’t sneak in the back door to share it with them for a fourth year in a row.
Other than the cosmetics of an undefeated season in Big East play and keeping their overall resume as blemish-free as possible going into next week’s conference tournament, there were not a lot of external motivating factors for her team entering the regular season finale at sub-.500 Xavier.
Those complacency risks didn’t show up in Cincinnati on Sunday as the fifth-ranked Bluejays needed fewer than 90 minutes to dispatch the Musketeers 25-13, 25-16, 25-16 to complete the 18-0 season in conference play and improve to 27-2 overall on the year.
“I just told the team how proud I was of them,” Booth said. “It’s only the [third] time in the new Big East to have a team go 18-0, and it’s even harder while dropping only three sets and a lot of times in the locker room we’re nitpicking all the things that we have to work on. I just told them to reflect on how impressive it is what they’ve done and the maturity of this group to show up night in and night out, respect every single opponent, and perform at a high level every time they step on the court.”
Creighton had 20 kills as a team in game one to set the tone for another highly terminal offensive performance. The Jays showed why the boast the nation’s second-most efficient offense on Sunday by hitting .455 in set one, .417 in set two, and .469 in set three. Their superstar pin hitters in senior Norah Sis and junior Ava Martin combined for 30 kills on .500 hitting. Xavier as a team produced just 24 kills and no player had more than seven.
Sis closed her last regular season of college volleyball with 17 kills and just three attack errors for a .519 attack percentage. Martin finished with a .478 hitting clip to go along with her 13 kills, eight digs, and two blocks.
“They were really good,” Booth said of her six rotation stars. “I think there were some block matchups that were advantageous to us. I thought when we were in system that we were able to create some holes, and I thought they really followed game plan. Xavier’s got some very specific things they do on in system balls versus out of system, and I thought they were locked into knowing where to hit in those different situations.”
Creighton’s only significant bout of adversity came early in set two when the fell into a 10-6 hole. Sis and Martin produced kills on six of the next 10 points scored by CU to draw even at 15-15, then Sis went on an 8-0 serving run to open the floodgates and kill any hopes that Xavier had of pulling off a season-salvaging upset.
“I thought throughout the entire match we were pretty good defensively and in dig transition, but early in that set I think three of their six first points were off of our serving errors,” Booth said. “If you don’t give yourself a chance to create rhythm, you’re not going to be able to go on any of those runs. Norah being able to put in good, solid serves to disrupt them, took them out of system, and then we were good at dig transition.”
Senior setter Kendra Wait put up 36 assists, 10 digs, and three kills for her 18th double-double of the season. Senior libero Maddy Bilinovic added 11 digs, four assists, and a pair of aces that came as part of an individual scoring run from behind the line in each of the three sets on Sunday. The middle and right side of Creighton’s offense in seniors Kiara Reinhardt and Elise Goetzinger and redshirt freshman Jaya Johnson also produced 13 kills on .370 hitting.
With the regular season now behind them and those goals now crossed off the board, the Bluejays set their sights on the Big East Tournament that starts next Wednesday in Omaha.
“This is what you work your tail off for starting in January,” Booth said. “Championship season is here. I told them we’ve completed two phases. Both have been fantastic, and I said to them that now — other than Marquette — the teams arriving at our place next week, it is do or die for them.
“That’s not the case for us, but I said this is a great, great opportunity to hone in on some things as we enter postseason play. I think they understand, but we will be playing people that it’s do or die, and I think there is an urgency from teams like that may play at a different level than they normally do because of that.”
The Bluejays earned a bye to the semifinals courtesy of their dominant run through league play. They’ll face the winner of No. 4 seed DePaul and No. 5 seed St. John’s at D.J. Sokol Arena on Friday, November 29 at 2:30 p.m.
After the conclusion of that match, No. 2 seed Marquette will take on the winner of No. 3 seed UConn and No. 6 seed Villanova for the final spot in Saturday’s championship match.