What a difference a year makes.

After sweeping through the Georgetown Classic this weekend with victories over St. Francis College, Morgan State and Brown, the Hoyas (6-3) have already surpassed their victory total – five wins – from a season ago.

Georgetown won all three matches in straight sets to claim the tournament championship, dominating St. Francis (0-12) and Morgan State (1-11) before proving it could handle a closer match in the nightcap against a feisty Brown squad (3-1) that hung tough in all three sets.

“I thought we did a pretty nice job,” Head Coach Arlisa Williams said. “We needed to focus on taking care of the first contact and being able to transition from offense to defense, and we did that very well.”

The Hoyas began the weekend with a convincing 25-10, 25-11, 25-11 victory against a Terrier team that ended the match with more errors than kills (12 to seven). Freshman outside hitter Sara Manley led Georgetown with 14 kills and hit .542, and fellow freshman libero Tori Rezin paced the Hoyas with 16 digs.

Next came a matchup with Morgan State, a team that also proved incapable of dealing with Georgetown’s attack.

The first set began with the teams trading points, as neither the Hoyas nor the Bears could pull away. But with Georgetown leading 5-4 and freshman setter Ashley Malone serving, the Hoyas started a nine-point run to put the game out of reach.

“The biggest thing, and we’ve focused on it all year, is serving competitively. Our servers went out there and served tough,” Williams said. “They didn’t make mistakes, and that allowed us to make some runs.”

The run featured a variety of blocks and kills by several Hoyas, including senior middle blocker Kit Niesen and junior outside hitter Jessica Hardy. From there, Georgetown continued to roll, taking the first set by a margin of 25-7. Most notable was the team’s accuracy, as the set included 12 kills and only one error for a .550 hitting percentage.

The Hoyas continued to assert themselves in the second set, helped out by eight errors from the Bears. Again, the score remained a close 8-5 in Georgetown’s favor until a 7-0 Hoya run broke the set open. Thanks to an efficient attack, Georgetown took the set 25-10.

“We executed very well tonight,” Hardy said. “We were pretty low-error when it came to the aggressive hitting, and we took care of the ball.”

Hardy and Manley each led Georgetown with five kills in the second set, and senior setter Caitlin Boland finished the match with 17 assists.

The third set provided another quick Hoya win and featured a fast Georgetown start that did not allow Morgan State a chance to stay close.

“[At halftime,] I asked the team to come out, stay focused and make sure we stayed low-error,” Williams said. “And they really did that.”

The Hoyas jumped out to a 7-0 lead and did not let up from there. The final was a lopsided 25-8, as Georgetown recorded 31 kills in the match to Morgan State’s 15.

Saturday night’s finale against then-undefeated Brown proved to be Georgetown’s toughest competition of the tournament, but the Hoyas prevailed 25-23, 25-22, 25-19 in three close sets.

Sophomore middle blocker Vanessa Dorismond led the team with 13 kills and had no errors. As a team, Georgetown hit .261, while Brown hit at a .220 clip.

Three Hoyas were named to the all-tournament team, including the tournament’s most valuable player, Rezin. The freshman libero had 43 kills over the three tournament games. Hardy and Dorismond were also selected to the eight-person team.

Georgetown will have a chance to build on this success at the Northwestern Invitational, which begins on Saturday. The Hoyas will take on Northwestern at noon in the opening match.

“