After losing its seventh match in a row Sunday, the Georgetown volleyball team (6-10, 0-3 Big East) will compete with the Marquette Eagles (11-3, 2-0 Big East) tonight in Milwaukee and the DePaul Blue Demons (3-11, 1-1 Big East) in Chicago tomorrow in its first two of four total road matches against Big East foes.

Marquette currently sits atop the Big East standings and just outside the top 25 teams nationally. The Hoyas are 0-4 against the Golden Eagles over the past three seasons. Although Marquette poses a significant challenge for Georgetown, the team heads to Wisconsin confident in its abilities.

“We know Marquette is going to be tough, they’ve always been in the top of our conference so they have some very good players,” said freshman outside hitter Terese Cannon, who leads the Hoyas in kills. “We have had some close games in the conference so far, so we know that we can play with the teams as long as we take care of ourselves. I think we’re working well together as a team, as a unit — there’s a lot of chemistry there.”

The team’s dominant performances on defense help its cause. The Hoyas lead the Big East in digs, which Cannon thinks is a quality of the team that will help in the upcoming road matches.

“I think we’ve been playing really, really good defense which, me being a freshman here, I’ve never really been on a team that plays good defense before so it’s really exciting for me to be part of that,” Cannon said.

With that said, the Hoyas recognize their need to improve consistency and offensive performance.

“The biggest thing for us is our inconsistency,” Head Coach Arlisa Williams said. “There are times when we’re doing things extremely well, and then there are times when we don’t execute at that level and so everything that we’ve done this week at practice is targeted towards ‘How are we going to be more consistent?’”

Cannon concurred that the focus of recent preparations has been on increasing offensive output.

“One of the main things that we’ve been stressing in practice is getting points — actually earning and scoring points,” Cannon said. “Taking big swings, and not just keeping the ball off the ground and waiting till the other team makes a mistake, but actually going out and earning our own points.”

Marquette, the defending Big East champion, faces Georgetown with a seven-match win streak under its belt. Most recently, it defeated fellow Big East rivals Providence and St. John’s in straight sets.

“Our goal is to steal one,” Williams said of the match against the Golden Eagles. “We’re going to go in, we’re going to play hard, we’re going to swing as hard as we can, we’re going to try and stop their hitters, and we’ll serve them out of system — we’ll do what we can.”

The Blue and Gray will need to make a quick turnaround to prepare for DePaul on Saturday night in Chicago. Though the back-to-back matches necessitate a fast recovery for the Hoyas, the geographic proximity of the two matches diminishes the difficulties. Milwaukee and Chicago are just 90 miles apart.

Williams explained that her squad will prepare for the Golden Eagles and Blue Demons in similar fashion.

“The two teams, even though they’re at different levels, have some similarities in the things that they do. We’ve been able to prepare for some things this week that we haven’t typically seen, but both teams do it,” Williams said.

Georgetown is an even 2-2 with DePaul over the past three seasons. Though DePaul is just 2-8 in its past 10 matches, they most recently routed Providence 3-0.

Considering that all of Georgetown’s Big East matches have been at home in McDonough Arena this season, the four upcoming road matches will certainly present a change.

“There’s obviously a different mindset — you’re going into a different gym and you’re going to have fans there for the other team,” Cannon said. “I’m excited to experience it for the first time.”

Also on the Hoyas’ minds are the strong offensive performances of their veteran players and their proximity to significant milestones. Senior outside hitter Alex Johnson has 999 kills in her career, as well as 945 digs. Fellow senior middle blocker Dani White has 980 kills.

“I think that they’re just out playing hard and trying to win, but when it happens, we’ll celebrate it,” Williams said of Johnson and White reaching those milestones.

After the matches against Marquette and DePaul, the Hoyas will rest for a week until two additional road matches against Villanova (9-9) and Seton Hall (13-3) on Oct, 10 and 11, respectively.