Slow Starts Doom #20 Creighton Volleyball in Loss to Unbeaten K-State

OMAHA, Neb. -- After a dominant first set, the No. 20 Creighton Volleyball team got off to slow starts in each of the next three games and suffered a 3-1 loss to unbeaten Kansas State on Friday night before a sellout crowd of 2,470 at D.J. Sokol Arena. Scores in favor of K-State were 15-25, 25-13, 25-22, 25-22.

Kansas State improved to 7-0 to match its best start since 2013, while Creighton dropped a fourth straight match to drop to 5-6 on the young season.

Freshman Addison Massey had 20 kills and 15 digs to lead the Wildcats, while classmate Skylar Brady owned 11 kills. Cadence Lundren had 10 blocks and hit .500 in 10 swings and Emerson Van Lannen had 21 assists and 13 digs to notch a double-double. The Wildcats hit .150 and had 45 kills, 66 digs, 10 blocks and nine aces.

Trinity Shadd-Ceres led CU with 19 kills while Ayden Ames contributed 10 kills and hit .364. Saige Damrow paced the CU defense with 26 digs and Sydney Breissinger tied her season-high with 13 digs. The Jays had 50 kills, 68 digs, nine blocks and two aces on .176 hitting.

Creighton trailed 9-5 early in the first set before Nora Wurtz authored a 5-0 run to take the lead for good. That surge jump-started a 20-6 burst that included six kills on K-State overpasses. After mustering only 17 kills in Wednesday's match at No. 1 Nebraska, Creighton had 16 kills in the first set alone and hit .289. Shadd-Ceres had seven kills and Ames added five kills and two blocks in the opening frame. Kansas State managed just five kills and hit -.034 in the opener.

Kansas State seized the momentum at the start of the second set and never trailed again, racing to leads of 3-0 and 10-1 as CU committed five attack errors in the first nine points. The Wildcats led 15-8 at the technical timeout and evened the match with a 25-13 victory. CU hit -.143 in the second set as Brady had five kills by herself to pace the visitors. Lundgren had a hand in all five KSU blocks in the second frame.

Eliah Derrer opened the third set with an ace to help the Wildcats storm to a 7-1 lead out of the break. Creighton clawed back to within two points at 10-8, but the Jays and Wildcats then traded 16 straight sideouts. K-State never let CU get any closer than two points and closed out the set on a Bluejay service error. Massey led Kansas State with eight kills in the set and Damrow owned seven digs in the game for CU.

The Wildcats scored the first five points of the fourth frame en route to another 7-1 advantage. The lead grew as large as 12-4 before the Bluejays answered. Three straight kills from Shadd-Ceres brought the Bluejays within 12-8, and the Jays would battle all the way back to knot the score at 21-all on a block by Ames and Katie Dalton. The threat ended there, as K-State scored the next three points to get to match point and won the contest on CU's 24th attack error of the match. Shadd-Ceres had seven kills in the last set but CU's comeback was thwarted by five service errors and three reception errors. 

Creighton hosts No. 15 Texas A&M (5-5) on Sunday at 4 p.m. in a Top 25 match-up that will air on FS1. The Aggies are the defending national champions.