No. 17 Creighton captures ninth Big East tournament championship
MILWAUKEE — The feeling of winning a Big East tournament isn’t a new one for No. 17 Creighton.
“It never gets old,” Creighton head coach Kirsten Bernthal Booth said. “Each year you see challenges and you hope you can kind of put it together and this group has been selfless. We’ve played a lot of different lineups, probably more lineups than we’ve ever played and then had different people step up throughout the year and it’s a testament to all 18 of them.”
When Booth got to the locker room after Creighton swept St. John’s to win the Big East tournament championship on Saturday afternoon she experienced something she’s not too fond of.
“I hate getting water on me and they were like ‘we were going to dump the whole thing on top of you’ and I was like ‘good choice not doing that,’” Booth said with her hair wet.
The 25-13, 25-9, 25-23 sweep over St. John’s gives Creighton its fourth straight and ninth total Big East tournament championship.
Creighton got out to a fast start in the first set taking a 4-0 lead. By the time the score was 9-3 senior Kiana Schmitt had three of her match high 12 kills.
“The impressive thing with Kiana is they had four hands in front of her almost the whole time and she just does a nice job working in different areas of the court and she’s not scared to challenge hands,” Booth said.
By the time the first set was over six different Bluejays had tallied a kill.
Another fast start for Creighton helped it get out to a 15-3 lead in the second set while on a 7-0 scoring run. Big East all-tournament team member Ava Martin got the run started with a kill, and setter Kendra Wait scored the last point of it with a kill from the right side.
“We know Kendra can hit really well so we’ve talked to our out of system setters that you can go to either pin,” Booth said on Big East player of the year, Wait. “She loves the opportunity to hit, so it was great to allow her to do that, I thought it was a great set by Sydney.”
Neither team gained an edge in the third set as the biggest lead of the set was four points when Creighton led 20-16.
“I think it was honestly pretty good for us to have to work at it,” Schmitt, the 2023 Big East tournament's most outstanding player said. “To get pushed a little bit and know that even in tight situations we can respond and we can still find ways to put the ball away.”
As a team Creighton had 13 blocks while St. John’s had three. Defensively Creighton held St. John’s to hit .021 overall.
“I thought that was two things, A — getting them out of system so that we could form our block and then just discipline. We block them a little bit different than we do some other teams and I thought we did a nice job with the game plan on that,” Booth said.
Next up for Creighton is finding out who it’ll play in the NCAA Tournament, with the selection show airing Sunday at 5 p.m. on ESPN.
The Bluejays (27-4) will look to continue their 15-game winning streak when they next take the floor.
“We started a new season this weekend, so we go into another postseason opportunity and we should get to host, so we’re excited to play in front of our awesome crowd,” Booth said. “Tomorrow night is always exciting and trying to see who’s going to land in Omaha is exciting and fun and hopefully we’ll play our best.”
Creighton (27-4, 16-2) ..... 25 25 25
St. John’s (23-10, 13-5) ... 13 9 23
CU (kills-aces-blocks): Sis 5-1-0, McCune 0-1-0, Reinhardt 5-2-6, Martin 9-0-3, Schmitt 12-0-4, Bichelmeyer 6-0-3, Wait 3-0-4, Breissinger.
STJ: Mermell 0-0-0, Jones 7-1-0, Martin 0-0-0, Tosi 0-0-1, Zola 1-0-1, Kowalcyzk 0-0-0, Stambrowska 3-0-2, Solano Smith 0-0-0, Garcia 0-0-0, Walther 6-0-1, Robinson 0-0-0, Lodi 7-0-1.
Assists: CU 39 (Wait 31, Breissinger 5, Sis 1, Reinhardt 1, Martin 1), STJ 24 (Kowalcyzk 14, Jones 8, Martin 1, Solano Smith 1). Digs: CU 41 (Breissinger 12, McCune 11, Martin 8, Wait 5, Reinhardt 1, Schmitt 1, Bichelmeyer 1), STJ 31 (Solano Smith 10, Lodi 6, Martin 5, Jones 4, Kowalcyzk 4, Mermella 1, Walther 1).
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