The Creighton volleyball team improved to 10-1 and opened conference play with a pair of victories as the Jays knocked off the preseason MVC No. 2 Missouri State University and No. 3 Wichita State University at D.J. Sokol Arena.
The Jays hosted the Shockers on Saturday night in front of a season-high crowd of 1,544 and pulled out a hard-fought four-set win. Scores in favor of Creighton were 25-19, 21-25, 25-18 and 25-23.
As a team, the Jays finished with 55 kills, 67 digs, eight aces and eight blocks on .253 hitting.
Senior setter Megan Bober fought through illness to come up big for the Jays with 43 assists, 15 digs, eight kills, .471 hitting, three blocks and two aces. Head coach Kirsten Bernthal Booth complimented her senior leader’s toughness.
“She’s been sick with the flu all day long and it’s pretty phenomenal … She’s just a winner,” Booth said. “She stepped up, she stayed composed and she had a great night.”
Sophomore outside hitter Leah McNary was a force for the Jays on offense and posted a career-high 21 kills, including the final kill of the fourth set that clinched the game for Creighton.
The Jays were poised to close out the match with a 24-21 lead. Creighton went to McNary, but Wichita State put up a wall and sent her back. Bober wasn’t discouraged, however, and kept feeding McNary.
“I just was happy that [Bober] believed in me that much,” McNary said. “I was getting blocked and my mentality was just ‘Leah, put the ball down. We have one more point to score. Just put it down.’”
That is exactly what she did on the Bluejays’ third match point. McNary got up and put the ball down hard off of a set by Bober.
“Leah had a great match tonight and she’s just such an explosive outside hitter and I just knew that she could end this game for us and get the kill that we needed,” Bober said.
A day before taking on the Shockers, the Jays opened the conference season against the Bears of Missouri State. The Jays dominated in the first two sets, but Missouri State fought back and took the next two sets to force a decisive fifth set. After a back-and-forth start, Creighton took control and pulled out the victory. Scores in Creighton’s favor were 25-13, 25-23, 22-25, 22-25 and 15-8.
Missouri State had the edge in kills and assists with 69 and 66 compared to Creighton’s 64 and 54, but the Jays out-hit the Bears .286 to .189, committed only 16 attack errors compared to MSU’s 32, and dominated at the net with a 16.5-6 advantage in blocks.
Sophomore middle blocker Kelli Browning led the Jays with 16 kills and 11 blocks. Bober finished with 44 assists, 11 digs, seven kills and six blocks. McNary was also in double figures on the attack with 13 kills.
Freshman outside hitter Melanie Jereb posted her first career double with 15 kills (a personal best) and 10 digs. Strong starts from McNary and Browning resulted in more opportunities for Jereb, and she took advantage.
“They focused in more on Leah and Kelli at the beginning which gave me a chance to score, but then they started getting more aware that every hitter on our team can score if they need to,” Jereb said.
That offensive balance is what makes the Jays’ attack so effective and is a big part of the team’s success so far.
“I think that’s one of our strengths,” Booth said. “If you scout Creighton I think you can say it might be Kelli Browning tonight, it might be Heather Thorson, it might be Melanie Jereb, it might be Leah McNary, it might be Michelle Sicner. Bober might have a ton of dumps so, that’s our goal, that a team can’t decide to shut down one player because if they shut down that one player hopefully someone else is going to step up.”
Creighton took control of the first set with a 10-0 run behind the serving of freshman defensive specialist Ashley Jansen, and the Jays cruised to a 12-point win.
Creighton carried the momentum into the second set and jumped out to an 11-6 lead early on. The Bears weren’t done yet, though, and they fought back to tie the game at 16 apiece, then took 19-18 and 22-21 leads. The Jays held off the rally with a 4-1 run to close out the set and go up 2-0.
“They didn’t come out playing their best, we came out ready to go, and I think when you roll a team for a game and a half and then they start to play better it disrupts things and then you kind of start to panic a little bit,” Booth said. “It was really fortunate we held on and won game two.”
Both the third and fourth sets followed a similar script with the two teams battling back and forth with neither team able to pull away. Missouri State made late runs to close out both sets an even the match at 2-2.
Creighton reasserted control in the fifth set and cruised to a seven-point win. Jereb put down the final kill to seal the victory. Booth was impressed with the team’s composure in the fifth set after dropping two straight games.
“I really like how we responded in game five,” Booth said. “You lose two games in a row, I think you can roll over emotionally, but I felt they came out ready to win that game and thinking they were going to win it, so that was good.”
Creighton returns to the court at D.J. Sokol Arena tomorrow at 5 p.m. against
Drake University.