Creighton Volleyball Takes Down Ole Miss To Advance To Sweet 16

OMAHA, Neb. -- The second-seeded and sixth-ranked Creighton Volleyball team punched a ticket back to the Sweet 16 with a hard-fought 3-0 win over Ole Miss on Friday night before a D.J. Sokol Arena record crowd of 2,665.

The first two sets featured 32 ties and 14 lead changes as CU won a pair of deuce battles 28-26 and 27-25 before CU opened the third set with a 15-1 lead and won 25-7.

Creighton (31-2) set a program record with its 24th straight win and tied another with its 31st victory of the season. Ole Miss, which won its first NCAA Tournament match in program history last night, ends its season 18-12. CU will next face two-time defending national champion Texas next weekend at a day, time, site and location to be determined.

Creighton won an absolute slugfest in the first set, 28-26, as both teams saved set points before the Bluejays ultimately prevailed. After CU squandered a 24-22 lead, Ole Miss won a reversal to prolong the set and create a set point opportunity of its own at 25-24. An Ava Martin kill tied the score before teams traded sideouts. Tied at 26, Norah Sis gave CU a 27-26 advantage and Jaya Johnson and BIG EAST block leader Kiara Reinhardt combined to stuff Ole Miss attacker Nia Washington and give the overflow crowd at D.J. Sokol Arena a deep sigh of relief.

Sis and Elise Goetzinger each had five kills for CU in the first frame, with Kendra Wait dishing a dozen assists and Reinhardt providing a pair of blocks. Ole Miss was led by five kills from Emma Ammerman and three stuffs by Washington.

The second set was equally intense with 15 ties and six more lead changes. Ole Miss led 21-20 but the Bluejays regained the lead with kills by Wait and Goetzinger. Knotted at 25-all, Sis put down her eighth kill of the night and followed with a service ace down the sideline to send CU into the intermission with a 2-0 lead. Five different Bluejays contributed three or more kills in the game, while Sis had a pair of aces as well as three digs.

The Bluejays kept things rolling in the third set, using a 13-0 run on Martin's serve to take a commanding 15-1 lead. Four different Bluejays recorded at least one kill, while Martin served up a pair of aces during the surge. CU's lead grew to 22-6 on back-to-back kills from Martin before kills from Sis and Wait closed out the victory. Creighton hit a blistering .583 with 14 errorless kills, while recording three blocks and holding Ole Miss to -.080 hitting in the third set. Wait, the two-time BIG EAST Player and Setter of the Year, capped off the victory with a kill on match point.

Goetzinger led all-players with 12 kills on .556 hitting, while Martin closed the match with 11 kills and Sis contributed 10 kills and a team-high 12 digs of her own. Wait nearly finished with a triple-double for the second night in a row, finishing with 35 assists, eight kills and eight digs on .889 hitting. Creighton had 47 kills, six aces, 36 digs and seven blocks on .350 hitting.

Ole Miss got a team-high 11 kills from Washington, a 30 assist and 10 dig double-double from Mokihana Tufono and 10 digs from Cammy Niesen in the loss. The Rebels closed the match with 36 kills, three aces, 32 digs and seven blocks on .178 hitting. 

Creighton will now face Texas in the Sweet 16 on Friday, December 13th at Noon.