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Volleyball Starts Season 1-1

No. 18 Creighton opened the regular season at the Iowa State Challenge in Ames squaring off against familiar foes this weekend. CU opened Saturday with a tough five set loss to old rival Wichita State before closing Sunday on a winning note versus host Iowa State in four sets.

Saturday's defeat was the Bluejays first in a season opener since 2008, when that club lost to two ranked foes at the Bluejay Invitational. That team started 1-3 and went on to finish 18-9 with a 15-3 second place Valley finish.

Leading the Shockers two sets to none, the Blue and White just could not find a way to close the Shockers out losing the last three sets by a combined four points with WSU controlling set five.

Iowa State jumped out early winning the opening set, then it was all Bluejays who won three closely contested sets to earn the win finishing 1-1 with an opening weekend split versus two evenly matched opponents.

Both matches saw the Bluejays have more kills than their opponents with sophomore Jaali Winters leading the team in both matches.Sunday, the defense put up a wall, out blocking the 'Clones 12-7 which was key to that victory.

Next up is a trip back out to California where the 2015 season came to an end. Instead of being in San Diego they'll play in Los Angeles. Three excellent opponents await with Northern Iowa, Kentucky and Southern California.

These three opponents will be retreads from a season ago when all four met in Cedar Falls the second weekend where CU went 1-2 losing to the Trojans and Panthers before defeating the Wildcats who were ranked No. 10 at the time.

This is the third straight season where the schools have matched up as they played in 2014 in Lexington where the Jays again were 1-2, defeating only UNI that weekend. These teams should be plenty familiar with one another based on how frequently they've ran into one another previous to this upcoming set of matches.

USC ended Creighton's season last December in the Sweet 16, defeating the Jays in four sets. The Trojans got off to a rough start this past weekend losing three matches.

CU is looking to make a fifth straight appearance in the NCAA tournament and sixth in the past seven seasons. During this stretch the worst record they've had after their opening weekend has been 1-3 which occurred in both 2010 (NCAA tournament season) and 2011 the last time they didn't reach the tournament.

Game times will be 7 pm Friday against Northern Iowa, 2 pm against Kentucky and 10 pm versus USC on Saturday.

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