Creighton University
3-2
USC
5-0
Volleyball Falls in Four Sets vs. No. 6 USC
9/6/2014 1:04:00 PM | Volleyball
LEXINGTON, Ky. -- Creighton threw an early scare into No. 6 USC before All-American Ebony Nwanebu took over and helped the Trojans to a 3-1 win at the Commonwealth Classic on Saturday morning in Lexington, Ky.
After Creighton won the first set 25-22, USC rebounded to win the final three sets 25-18, 25-15, 25-18. The Trojans improved to 5-0 on the season, while Creighton fell to 3-2.
"I think we took a step forward today," said CU head coach Kirsten Bernthal Booth. "This is the sixth-ranked team in the country, who I think could be a Final Four team. We have set the schedule so that we are going to be tested every time we take the court. I want the players to recognize when we take a step forward, and we took a step forward today. Now with that said, we didn't play perfect ball."
Creighton won the first set, 25-22, in a closely contested frame that featured eight ties and four lead changes. The Bluejays trailed 5-2 early but would even the score at 8-all on a Marysa Wilkinson kill. Down 16-14, CU used a 4-0 run on Ashley Jansen's serve to take a two-point edge and force a timeout. USC answered with four in a row of its own as CU burned through both timeouts. The breaks worked, as CU would close out the first set on a 7-2 run capped by Kelli Browning's kill.
"In the first game, we put pressure on them," said Booth. "We swung aggressively, we served aggressively, and then I think our defense made really some special digs in that first game to create either kill opportunities for us, or we were just so tenacious that USC gave us some errors that helped us out."
USC never trailed in the second set of a 25-18 victory to even the match. The Women of Troy built an 11-5 early and CU never recovered. USC hit .444 in the second set, while holding CU to .139 hitting. All-American Nwanebu had five kills in seven swings during the set after just one kill in the opener.
The Women of Troy kept the heat on in the third set while rolling to a 25-15 victory and a 2-1 lead in the match. USC used an early 5-0 run to move in front, 6-2. The teams would play even over the next 24 points, but with USC leading 18-14 the Pac-12 power pounded five straight kills to end any hopes of a Bluejay comeback. Nwanebu had kills for five of USC's final six points to pace the Trojans.
The teams played even through the first 18 points of the fourth set before USC broke free with six of the next eight points to own a 15-11 lead. CU got within two points at 15-13 after a Maggie Baumert ace, but would get no closer due in part to four service errors in the final frame.
Nwanebu had 14 kills in 27 swings, hitting .481 for the afternoon. Samantha Bricio added 13 kills, 15 digs and a pair of aces for USC. The Women of Troy hit .306 and finished with 55 kills, five aces, 69 digs and 12 blocks.
Creighton was paced by 13 kills by Kelli Browning, who also hit .303. Wilkinson had nine kills and Jereb added eight kills and nine digs. Baumert finished with 34 assists and 11 digs, while Ashley Jansen and Kate Elman shared team-best honors with 15 digs each. CU hit .154 overall and had 46 kills, three aces, 60 digs and three blocks.
Creighton returns to action at 6:30 pm Central tonight when it takes on tournament host No. 16 Kentucky (4-1) to conclude the tournament. That match will be streamed free on SEC Network+ at http://espn.go.com/watchespn/index/_/id/1973173/NCAA-Womens-Volleyball-Creighton-vs-Kentucky.
NOTES: Maggie Baumert had her first double-double at Creighton, and 10th career double-double ... In winning the first set 25-22, Creighton became the first team to score 20 or more points in the first set against USC all season ... Creighton fell to 0-8 all-time against the current teams in the Pacific-12 Conference, but this was the first meeting with USC ... Creighton dropped to 0-19 all-time against top-10 teams, and 3-54 all-time vs. top-25 opposition ... Creighton had been 54-3 since Sept. 1, 2011 when winning the first set of a match ... Redshirt freshman Kenzie Crawford made her first career start.
