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The Creighton volleyball team has come close.
The Bluejays fell in five sets twice during tough road matches against Dayton and Illinois State. They had their chances to beat Northern Iowa at home but fell in the fourth set to the Panthers 28-26.
“A lot of people have said this to me, and I tend to agree — I think we're waiting for a big win to hopefully kind of solidify some confidence,” Creighton coach Kirsten Bernthal Booth said. “We just need to verify for our kids that this is a good team and that we can play well for an entire match.”
Booth wouldn't mind one bit if the Bluejays could put together a breakthrough performance this weekend. They play two of their toughest remaining home matches when they host No. 25 Wichita State tonight and Missouri State on Saturday.
The Creighton-Missouri State contest will air live on NET, and it will be the first televised event from the Bluejays' new campus arena.
Wichita State, the preseason Missouri Valley favorite, is 11-2 overall and 2-1 in the league. Missouri State (10-4, 3-0) handed the Shockers their only Valley defeat. The Bears are a perennial NCAA tournament qualifier, and they and Northern Iowa are the league's lone unbeaten teams two weeks into the conference season.
Coming off a five-set win at Indiana State and a 3-2 defeat at Illinois State, Creighton is 5-9 and 2-2 in Valley play. It's been an up-and-down year for a Bluejays team that regularly relies on four players who hadn't appeared in a Division I match prior to 2009.
But Booth has no doubt that her team possesses the necessary talent to succeed. The Bluejays need to keep plugging away and stay positive, she said, until it all clicks.
“We've tried to tell this team over and over again that if everyone takes care of their jobs the way we as coaches think they're capable of doing, we can be a really potent team,” Booth said. “We're just not yet seeing the discipline and consistency we need to see.”
Contact the writer:
444-1207, chad.purcell@owh.com
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