Coming off of an Elite Eight appearance in the 2016 season that featured wins against No. 5 Kansas and No. 17 Michigan in the NCAA Tournament, the Creighton volleyball team comes into the 2017 season with high expectations and a No. 9 ranking — the highest in program history — in the preseason American Volleyball Coaches Association poll.
The Bluejays opened the season by winning the Husky Invitational with wins against Saint Mary’s, Pittsburgh and No. 3 Washington. Creighton snapped Washington’s 81-match winning streak in regular season nonconference matches, which brought the Bluejays’ ranking up to No. 7, the highest in program history. Senior Marysa Wilkinson was named Tournament MVP.
Coach Kirsten Bernthal Booth has noticed a difference in the 2017 team compared to the 2016 team at this point.
“It’s different than last year, I didn’t think we had that poise last year,” Booth said. “I’m not sure we would have won those matches … at this time last year we got passive and this year we went for it and good things happened.”
The Jays followed up by winning the Bluejay Invitational after beating No. 13 Kentucky and Northern Iowa but lost to No. 18 Southern California. USC finished at 1-2, Northern Iowa went 1-2 and Kentucky went 2-1, which meant that Creighton had the tiebreaker over Kentucky to win the invitational. The Bluejays now sit at their original No. 9 ranking after the third AVCA poll. Senior Lydia Dimke was named the invitational’s Most Outstanding Player.
“Well if you had said to me at the beginning of the year ‘Would you take 5-1?’ I would take it in a heartbeat, I think any of us would,” Booth said. “But we saw some deficiencies this weekend so we got to go back and get better. We keep saying it’s a marathon, it’s a marathon and we’re only about five miles in.”
After going 0-4 against ranked teams in the 2016 regular season and 2-1 against ranked teams in the NCAA tournament, the Bluejays have already started the 2017 season with a 2-1 record against ranked teams and a 5-1 record altogether.
The Bluejays have another tough set of matches coming up at the Kansas Invitational this weekend with matches against No. 17 Purdue, Belmont and No. 7 Kansas. Kansas is a familiar foe, as Creighton lost to Kansas in the Bluejay Invitational last year but upset them in the round of 32 in the 2016 NCAA tournament.
Creighton will finish its nonconference schedule at the Shocker Volleyball Classic, as the favorites with matches against Wichita State and Iowa State. The Bluejays played both of these teams last year in the Iowa State Challenge last year, losing to Wichita State and beating Iowa State.
The Bluejays then head into Big East play where they will be the favorites to win the regular season and the Big East tournament, as no other teams in the Big East are ranked. Creighton headed into Big East play with a 6-6 non-conference record last year and are in good position to improve upon that for the 2017 season.
While only six games into the new season, the Jays have shown how prepared they were for the new season. As the expectations rose, the Jays have stepped up to the challenge.