The Creighton volleyball team hasn’t won as often as it would have liked in the first nine weeks of the season.

But so much of 2009 for the Bluejays has been about new players finding their comfort levels. Nayka Benitez said she definitely feels more at home at Creighton these days, and that has to be good news for CU as it enters the stretch run.

Benitez, a standout libero from San Juan, Puerto Rico, already has shown she can be a difference-maker for the Bluejays. But much like CU’s season as a whole, it’s been an up-and-down journey for Benitez as she adjusts to a new school and a higher level of volleyball.

“It’s a big change for me in a short time,” said Benitez, who previously starred at Western Nebraska Community College in Scottsbluff. “But out on the court, I think I have a really good chemistry with my teammates. They help me a lot, and I love the team.”

Benitez ranks fourth in the Missouri Valley Conference at 0.35 aces per set, and her 4.43 digs places her fifth in the league. She became the first player in program history to record 30 or more digs in consecutive matches, totaling 30 in a Sept. 26 loss at Illinois State and 36 on Oct. 2 during a win over then-No. 25 Wichita State.

Benitez has stepped into the same role held the last two seasons by former CU libero and fellow San Juan native Bianca Rivera, who also joined the Bluejays after a decorated career at Western Nebraska CC.

“I met with Nayka Tuesday, and she was a different person,” said CU coach Kirsten Bernthal Booth. “She said she feels like she’s gotten over the hump, and that she was (no longer) homesick. There’s a growth period there. Bianca went through that, too, and then she kind of surged during that last part of her first season. We’re hoping that will be the case for Nayka.”

Creighton (7-12, 4-5 Valley) hopes it can start a late-season push this weekend when it hosts matches against Illinois State (9-11, 4-5) and Indiana State (6-16, 2-7). Halfway through the league schedule, the Bluejays find themselves in a three-team traffic jam for fifth place in the Valley.

The Bluejays will host the Valley tournament at Sokol Arena in the final weekend of November, which means CU is guaranteed a spot in the league playoffs. Creighton still has a good chance to move into the No. 4 seed.

But Booth said more than anything, the Bluejays want to build up some steam leading into the conference tournament. With no shot at an at-large NCAA tournament invitation, the coach said her team is rallying around the idea that it can still crash the postseason by defending its new home court.

“I think we are in better shape now as a team than we were in the past,” Benitez said. “We’re just trying to get better every practice, and we’re going to keep working for that conference tournament — that’s what we’re thinking about. This is the second half, and I think we will do better than we did in the first part of the season.”

Contact the writer:

444-1207, chad.purcell@owh.com

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