The Jays first conference games and road trip of the 2008 season yielded mixed results.

First, Creighton (4-5, 1-1) took on Bradley (3-8, 0-1) in Peoria, Ill. Junior Sarah Schulze served the Jays to victory with 9 consecutive points in the second set and four in a row in the pivotal fourth set. That Jays won 25-20, 25-14, 23-25, 26-24.

Creighton, who had a .253 hitting percentage for the match, cruised in game one thanks to a 5-0 run from sophomore Allie Oelke.

Game two featured Schulze’s spectacular serving, which gave the Jays an early 9-0 lead.

After Bradley took game three, it looked like they might tie the match up when they led 23-19 in the fourth set before Schulze had her four serves; then junior Carolyn Decker and freshman Laurel Sanford, who started for the first time in her college career, had back-to-back kills to end the match.

Leading the Jays, were Oelke with a season-high 14 kills. Creighton had 51 kills, four aces, 56 digs and nine blocks for the match. The Jays also had a season-high 15 serving errors.

The Braves were led by 10 kills from Amy Reichel, while freshman Megan Schmidt had a hand in six of the team’s seven blocks. Bradley had 40 kills, three aces, 54 digs and seven blocks while hitting .092.

Fresh off the win, the Jays headed to Cedar Falls, Iowa for a Saturday night tilt with the Panthers of Northern Iowa.

Creighton won most of the statistical categories (points 94-91, hitting percentage .244 to .219 and digs Panthers 80-61), but lost the match 3-1.

UNI (11-1, 2-0) won by scores of 27-25, 25-20, 13-25, 26-24.

Game one featured 11 ties and five lead changes before the Panthers’ Amy Sampson had two kills and a block assist to propel UNI to the win.

After losing game two, the Jays reeled off eight in a row to begin game three and won 25-13. But the Panthers’ returned to form in game four, winning another very close game after another kill by Sampson and the match clincher by Shannon Aschoff.

“I feel like we’ve finally picked up on the pulse of this team” head coach Kirsten Bernthal Booth told gocreighton.com. “We enjoyed the moment and played loose. Our serving was the best its been all season, but we still have got to make sure we control runs. The early run in game four cost the game for us.”

Junior Jessica Houts led the Jays with 17 kills and a .448 hitting percentage. Senior Korie Lebeda had 49 assists and 11 digs for the double-double and fellow seniorBianca Rivera led the CU defense with a season-high 27 digs. Creighton hit .244 with 61 kills, two aces, 80 digs and nine blocks.

UNI was led by 19 kills from Sampson, who also hit .318. UNI had 56 kills, two aces, 61 digs and eight blocks.

The Jays return home next Friday when the Missouri State Bears come to the Civic Auditorium. The match starts at 7pm.