Last Thursday at Creighton Fall Media Day, White & Blue Review staff talked to volleyball head coach Kirsten Bernthal Booth about what she was most excited for coming into the season. She said, “I think the energy with this team is really positive and I feel like we are a lot better defensively. It will be fun for us to have someone other than ourselves on the opposing side.” If Saturday’s Blue-White scrimmage Saturday was any indication, you definitely saw the Creighton volleyball team is full of energy and excited for the season to start.
Alicia Runge, Allie Oelke and Laurel Sanford, along with Megan Bober’s setting and Nayka Benitez’s digs, were on display Saturday night as the Blue team took all five sets from the White team (25-17, 25-13, 25-20, 25-19, 15-9).
In the first set, Freshmen Julianne Mandolfo and Savannah Smith teamed up with those five starters. Mandolfo is looking for some immediate playing time as a defensive specialist while Smith is looking to be the other middle blocker to replace Lauren Bloemke, who is out for the season with a knee injury. Smith looked a little nervous, understandably expected just coming in fresh from high school, while Mandolfo looked pretty comfortable out on the court with not as much pressure.
The rest of the returning players rotated between teams the rest of the night, while freshmen Lexi Malm and Natalie Hackbarth were completely on the White team along with freshman setter Brianne Fliss. Fliss really did a nice job for the White team along with former Bluejays Korie Lebeda, Jessica Houts, and Amanda Cvejdlik. Volunteer coach Amanda Sjuts also participated on the White team.
The crowd of around 500 fans — including the Jays Dancers — was excited to see the results of the offseason. Last season saw a lot of new players hit the court for the first time. First time starters last season (Bober, Benitez, Sanford and Runge) had an up and down year. We asked Coach Bernthal Booth if, going into this season with a year under their belt, there are notable differences.
“Absolutely! Megan last year was following Korie Lebeda, probably the greatest setter in Creighton history, got thrown in and really played well toward the end of the season and had a great spring. I think she believes that she is playing well right now and as coaches we need to keep her believing that way. I don’t know if we did a good job of that last year. She feels more confident in herself, and I feel very confident in her. Nayka didn’t feel like she had a very good year and I met with her last week and she was pretty fired up that it was her last chance to play; she has a goal to play professionally. The other great thing is that we have some great DS’s (Defensive Specialists) which make things pretty competitive. She knows she has to up the ante.”
The Bluejays start the regular season on Friday and Saturday this week hosting San Francisco, Lipscomb, and Kansas in the Bluejay Invitational before their August 31 showdown with Nebraska. All of those matches will be at Sokol Arena. In the meantime, enjoy the pictures of the Blue-White game taken by WBR photographer Adam Streur.