WBR will preview the 2013 Creighton volleyball squad in the days leading up to the Bluejays’ season-opening tournament in Ohio on August 30. Click here to read any posts you missed.
Head coach Kirsten Bernthal Booth has great expectations for her team (Spomer/WBR)
Creighton volleyball has made it to the big time.
Four years ago, there were about a half dozen media members at fall media day to cover Kirsten Bernthal Booth’s Bluejays. Last week, there were almost two dozen media from TV, radio, newspaper, blogs, and other outlets to get the scoop on the nationally ranked Jays. The state of Nebraska’s best kept volleyball secret has gotten out.
Creighton enters the 2013 season full of expectations. In two of the past three seasons, Creighton advanced to the second round of the NCAA tournament knocking off challenging teams like Iowa State and new conference foe Marquette, while giving Minnesota — the team that ended CU’s 2012 and 2010 seasons — all the Gophers could handle.
The 2013 Bluejays, while young, can draw on a lot of experience to push them a long ways this season. That will be needed with Creighton moving to the new Big East.
Creighton returns five starters, including the libero, as they work to build off of the 28-4 record from a season that generated a record number of wins for the program. High flying hitter Leah McNary returns. MVC Defensive Player of the Year, Kelli Browning, will guard the net in the middle. All-MVC freshman Melanie Jereb will play opposite of McNary, while fellow All-MVC freshman libero Kate Elman and defensive specialist Katie Neisler bring back a year of experience.
“Physically we have some kids that have played a lot,” said Bernthal Booth. “I do think we are going to miss our leadership from last year. I think we have leaders on this team that we are asking at a younger age to kind of step in the roles that we don’t always have to ask them to do. We are calling our juniors seniors this year because that is the expectation. But [experience] is a good question mark for us.”
A big loss of leadership comes at the setter position. Megan Bober, who was probably the most decorated player in program history, graduated. Luckily, the hole in the lineup will be filled by a player that knows the position in junior Michelle Sicner. An all-state setter in high school, Sicner even teamed with Bober as a freshman to run a 6-2 set that gave the Bluejays a little more offense and to get her on the court. This past season she strictly played as an outside hitter. With two full seasons of playing experience on the court, the versatile Sicner can safely be handed the keys to the offense. There are other areas to fill holes according to Bernthal Booth.
“What you are fighting for this point is a middle position that Heather Thorson left, a defensive specialist position that Brooke Boggs left. Those are where those gaps are. It has been healthy competition and they have been great in practice so far.”
The No. 25 Bluejays open the season in the top 25 for the first time in program history. They are projected by many to be at the top of the Big East conference in the school’s first season in the league. Some teams could be distracted by these circumstances. But Creighton’s not one of them, according to Bernthal Booth:
“I really think it is a testament to the group last year. We hope to be in the top 25. It adds to the pressure, but that is where you want to be. That is the goal and we want to consistently be there. This is a program that I think we can win a national championship at Creighton. You have seen what the men’s soccer team has done. Our goal in the short term is we want to make a splash in the sweet 16 in the next couple of years and then go beyond that. That is what we tell recruits. My question is ‘Why can’t we?'”
Instead of the distractions of a ranking and preseason prognostications, one of bigger concerns could be how Bernthal Booth’s team might react to the new conference and traveling to new and exciting places. Heading to cities like New York, Milwaukee, Chicago and Philadelphia is definitely different than heading to Carbondale or Terre Haute. But that is something that she may have to worry about later and not now.
“We probably won’t know until we play that first team. The caliber of teams will be similar to what we faced in the Valley so I don’t see that changing that much. There is excitement to be able to say that I am going to Washington, D.C., over Terre Haute, Indiana. That will be fun I think. It will be our job to find that balance of enjoying the cities we are going to but also understand that we are here to get some things accomplished and play some great volleyball.”
The Bluejays are the only Big East team receiving votes in the polls and it is yet to be seen how this conference will shake out in their first season. Marquette had a successful season last year, but the rest of the league is still unknown. They will also only have nine teams in the conference — Providence plays in the America East.
To bolster the question marks of the conference season, Bernthal Booth once again built a non-conference that could bolster their strength of schedule as the season goes on, building a potential NCAA resume if the conference season doesn’t go as planned. Hawaii, UCLA, BYU, Kansas, and former MVC conference foe Wichita State are on the schedule. Many teams would avoid playing this type of slate. For the Bluejays, Bernthal Booth embraces the challenge.
“Historically we have done that [created a tough non-conference schedule] for the past five to six years,” said Bernthal Booth. “When we got to the 2007-2008 time frame we felt like we were getting close to that NCAA bid type of team, so we scheduled our non-conference to give us the best opportunity to hopefully earn an at-large bid. We had two years prior to 2010 that we were a bubble team and didn’t get in, but we scheduled with the idea that we were try to earn that bid.”
“This year may be a little bit more aggressive. We obviously felt like we had a group that can be successful. We’ll see.”
Any momentum created this season will create dividends even for 2014. There are no seniors on this year’s roster, making this season even more exciting given the expectations. The program isn’t in a building state anymore, it is in a reload mode. The secret may be out, but there isn’t anything to hide anymore.