Six weeks into her collegiate career, Julianne Mandolfo is already making a name for herself. The freshman defensive specialist was named the Missouri Valley Conference Freshman of the Week on Monday.
This comes after Mandolfo had a team and career high 27 digs in two separate games last weekend in Omaha, where she also had three aces – another career high – and five assists.
The Creighton volleyball team opened with its first home conference games of the year last weekend against the University of Northern Iowa and Bradley University. Friday night the Jays played UNI, where the Panthers won in what was thought to be a battle of contenders but turned into a 3-1 victory for the visitors.
The Jays looked overpowered at times during the first game. UNI seemed as though they were going to make quick work of the women. Creighton was able to battle through and kept things relatively close, considering their opponent was ranked No. 15 in the country.
“The first game was just a scouting error on our part,” said head coach Kirsten Booth. “We over-prepared in certain areas and then adjusted from there, as we saw in the second and third game.”
The third game was the only game the Jays were able to take from the Panthers. Rallying from a six-point deficit, the women beat UNI 26-24 and showed that they are able to compete even when faced with adversity.
Game four was largely controlled by the Panthers offense like the first two. Creighton showed it can be a power with both its offense and defense, but both working together was something that did not seem to happen all the time.
The Jays were led offensively by junior middleblocker Laurel Sanford with 12 kills and senior outside hitter Alicia Runge with 10 kills. Defensively, Allie Oelke had 20 digs.
“Defensively, Julianne stepping in to play libero was a question we had as a staff,” Booth said. “We didn’t know what to expect, and we wondered if she could play on a consistent basis, and so far she has been.”
Saturday night the Jays took out any frustration that Friday may have brought with a 3-1 victory over the Bradley University Braves. The Jays outplayed Bradley from the start, never letting the Braves get so much as a tie in the first game, beating them 25-9.
The rest of the night was much the same aside from a 18-25 loss that came in the second game. The scores for games three and four were 25-10 and 25-16, respectively.
Creighton was led offensively by season highs in aces with 12 total, seven coming from senior defensive specialist Nayka Benitez. In the front row, Runge led all hitters with 17 kills while five other Jays had at least seven kills. Junior setter Megan Bober added 40 assists and seven kills.
The Jays hit the road this weekend with games at Illinois State University and Indiana State University.