The St. John’s Women’s Volleyball team ended their home season on Nov. 11 with a loss to the No. 15 ranked Creighton Bluejays in three sets, 25-23, 23-25, 17-25, 10-25. The Johnnies held on to the close match for the first two sets breaking Creigton’s 30-set win streak, but ultimately could not get it done.
St. John’s, now 12-4 in the Big East Conference, are on a two-game losing streak after getting swept by Seton Hall (8-8) earlier in the week.
Sophomore outside hitter Lucrezia Lodi led the charge for the Johnnies with 19 kills, five digs, four blocks and two aces. She was assisted by sophomore setter/right-side hitter Erin Jones, who collected her 11th double-double of the season with 13 kills, 20 assists and eight digs.
The two sophomores got some additional help from middle blocker Magda Stombrowski who had six total blocks and three solo blocks. Freshman libero standout Rashanny Solano-Smith had 16 digs on the night, adding to an impressive 369 digs on the season so far. Junior setter Wiktoria Kowalczyk led St. John’s with 21 assists on the night. Their combined efforts were not enough to outlast a disciplined and tough Creighton team.
St. Johns opened up the first set with Erin Jones making a dig and Lucrezia Lodi finishing it off with a kill. With Lodi serving, the Johnnies went on a four-point run to go up 6-3 early on. Creighton then answered with a few digs and kills from Norah Sis, the junior outside hitter and Big East Preseason Player of the Year. She has helped the Bluejays lead the Big East Conference with 14.33 kills per set, 16.7 digs per set and a hitting percentage of .272. Creighton went on to go up 11-9 in the first set and forced the Johnnies into their first time out of the game.
The Bluejays would pull ahead with a small three-point lead, and the Johnnies answered with four. After a gutsy diving play in the middle of the set from Solano-Smith, Tosi could not deliver the kill to end the point, 15-13. Stombrowski and Lodi strung together a couple of hitting sequences to place the Johnnies back on top. Jones hit a tremendous kill with the score at 17-17 to get one point ahead. For Creighton, Sis would be the answer to keep them close in the first set, but Lodi finished it out with two kills in a row.
Creighton missed a kill on the outside, and Tosi blocked the final point to secure the 25-23 set win. The Johnnies outscored them with 16 kills compared to the Bluejays 11, three aces compared to their one, and an attacking percentage of .257 compared to Creighton’s .200.
The second set was another back-and-forth battle for both teams. The set opened up with another sliding save from Solano-Smith, translating into a Bluejay scramble and Strombrowski taking advantage of their weak side to finish it off with a kill. St. John’s held on for the entire set, battling back from three-point deficits after committing a few errors to bring the set to 16-13.
After going up 21-17 it started to look like Creighton could pull away with the set when Lodi hit a massive block and changed some of the momentum for the Johnnies. Stombrowski hit two more blocks, bringing the score to 21-21. Ava Martin, outside hitter for the Bluejays answered with a kill to a weak spot on the floor. Jones added pressure to Creighton until the last possible point when the Bluejays pulled away with a 25-23 set win.
From there, the momentum was completely in favor of Creighton. The Bluejays overpowered St. John’s in the last two sets, 25-17 and 25-10. Creighton started off with a 9-2 lead over the Johnnies in the third set, which was answered with a scoring run started by a massive block from Tosi. Creighton continued to pile on points, forcing errors from St. John’s that were the result of many scrambles on defense.
Creighton dominated in the fourth set, hitting .650 with 13 kills and six aces. They also made 20 errorless swings, and overpowered St. John’s with a .243 attacking percentage compared to the Johnnies .204 attacking percentage. The Bluejays went on an 8-1 run in the final moments of the match to pull away the win and secure a bye to the semi-finals of the Big East tournament.
St. John’s will end conference play on Friday as they travel to Marquette to play the Golden Eagles, who are currently tied for first with Creighton in the Big East. They will go straight to Chicago from there to take on DePaul for the last game of their regular season on Saturday and a last chance at pulling ahead in the Big East rankings.
