Creighton University
Saint Louis
Volleyball Sweeps Defending A-10 Champ Saint Louis
9/3/2010 10:31:00 PM | Volleyball
ST. LOUIS, Mo. -- Alicia Runge had 15 kills and Karisa Almgren a career-best 12 kills as Creighton avenged a 2009 defeat with a 3-0 win over defending Atlantic-10 Conference champion Saint Louis. The loss was Saint Louis' first loss at home to an unranked team since Oct. 20, 2006 vs. Dayton.
Creighton improved to 2-3 while Saint Louis dropped to 1-3.
"We did a nice job late in the first set and that set the tone for the match," said Creghton head coach Kirsten Bernthal Booth. "I thought Karisa (Almgren) had a great job stepping up and carrying a lot of the offensive load. I think Saint Louis is a great defensive team for us to out-dig them by 11 digs is a great accomplishment."
Creighton overcame deficits of 9-4 and 16-12 in the first set to claim a 25-22 first set victory. Karisa Almgren had four early kills to help carry the offense early, and Allie Oelke and Alicia Runge carried the load late to lead the Bluejays to 25-22 victory. Creighton had 28 digs in the first set, includnig seven from Oelke, while holding the hosts to .102 hitting.
Heather Thorson served the Jays to a 6-0 lead to open the secnod set and CU never looked back.Creighton built leads of 13-5 and 20-12 while cruising to the win. Creighton got six kills in the set by Runge and held SLU to .025 hitting.
The third and final set featured 12 ties and eight lead changes. Creighton trailed 19-16 late before a seven-point scoring run gave them a comfortable 23-19 lead. The Jays would close out the contest with Oelke kill.
Runge led Creighton with 15 kills while also posting a season-high five kills. Almgren had 12 kills while hitting .400, consistently finding holes in the Billiken block. Four players had 10 or more digs, includign 18 from Nayka Benitez, 17 by Oelke and 15 from Julianne Mandolfo. Freshman Savannah Smith topped CU with a career-best seven blocks. The Bluejays had 46 kills, three aces, 75 digs and 11.5 blocks while hitting .211.
Saint Louis was led by seven kills by Alyssa Deno, while Megan Boken had 16 digs. The Billikens had 26 kills, six aces, 64 digs and five blocks, hitting a paltry .029.
Creighton returns to action with a pair of matches on Saturday. Its 11:30 am match will be against Iowa (3-1), while its 5:00 pm contest will be versus Wake Forest (3-1). Wake Forest defeated the Hawkeyes in four sets earlier on Friday to open the tournament. Both matches can be heard on KKAR (1290 AM).
NOTES: This was Creighton's first road match of the season ... Alicia Runge entered the match with four blocks on the season but had five stuffs in the match ... Julianne Mandolfo had 15 digs to extend her career-opening streak of matches with double-digit digs to five ... Heather Thorson served up a career-high two aces ... Eight current and past members of the Missouri Valley Conference staff were in attendance at the match ... Saint Louis was 76-20 the previous three seasons and had been 35-3 at home in that time.
