NORMAL - After back to back wins in the last week, it looked like the Illinois State volleyball team had found some consistency. Friday night Creighton visited Redbird Arena to disprove that theory with a 3-1 victory.

The Bluejays' physical play up front led to the 30-27, 28-30, 30-26, 30-19 Missouri Valley Conference loss for ISU.

"I thought they pushed us around," ISU coach Sharon Dingman said. "It was a surprise to me, but they beat us up physically and they beat us up mentally."

ISU (6-9, 1-4) came in with an 11-match win streak against Creighton (12-3, 4-0), but from the start it appeared that statistic meant nothing to either team.

The Redbirds committed 10 errors on their way to a game one loss. In the second game ISU held off a late comeback from the Jays for a win, but failed to take any of that momentum into the next game.

"Momentum is what it is, but if you don't remember how you got it or why you won, than you can lose it just as quickly," Dingman said.

The Redbirds found themselves tied 10 times with the Bluejays in game three, but an inability to stop the hard hitting duo of Amanda Cvejdlik and Kelly Goc led to the loss. The talented tandem combined for 39 kills and Korie Lebeda finished with 60 set assists. Then in what proved to be the final game Creighton mustered up a 13-2 run to send everyone home.

"Up until the fourth game I don't think we were playing very tight volleyball," Creighton coach Kirsten Bernthal Booth said. "When our defensive passing improved our offense can go.

After recording five kills in the first two games, ISU's Kari Staehlin was shut out the rest of the way.

"They challenged us in a lot of different ways," Staehlin said. "I think we're going to learn from that, take it with us and show you a completely different team tomorrow."

Lindley McDavid led the Redbirds with 18 kills, while M.C. Richmond contributed 13.

"I think we needed to get M.C. (Richmond) the ball a little bit more in transition than we did," Dingman said. "We just couldn't expose their weaknesses tonight."

ISU will host Drake at 7 o'clock tonight.

"We're 1-4 in the league now and I don't know what else to say other than we're in a world of hurt," Dingman said.