Georgetown volleyball (6-14, 2-5 Big East) split matches against the Providence Friars (12-10, 0-6 Big East) and the Big East–leading Creighton Blue Jays (12-6, 6-0 Big East) this past weekend.
The Hoyas beat the Friars 3-1 this past Friday and fell to the Blue Jays 3-0 on Saturday in McDonough Arena.
Against Providence, Georgetown was able to dictate the pace of each set they won, jumping out to leads in the first, third and fourth sets. In the final set, the Hoyas and the Friars played a competitive match. The match was tied at 24 before senior Ashlie Williams slammed home back-to-back kills to seal the victory for the Blue and Gray.
Head Coach Arlisa Williams was particularly enthused with the team’s service game and how it allowed them to control the match.
“Serving is the first line of defense,” Coach Williams said. “So, if we are serving aces or serving them out of system, it makes it easier for us to block balls, and I think you saw us have some good blocking numbers as well. We were also able to dig balls better behind the block, and, from there, that helped us with the transition game, and, from there, it was all momentum. From there, it’s all about the point of contact.”
In the match against Creighton — the Big East leader and one of the top teams in the country — Georgetown played hard but could not keep Creighton from taking leads early in sets.
The Blue Jays proved to be too strong at the point of attack, despite great defensive efforts from sophomore setter Paige McKnight who recorded eight digs. Sophomores and outside hitters Symone Speech and Alyssa Sinnette chipped in offensively for a combined 15 kills. Speech also played an exceptionally clean game, hitting .421 and accruing no errors in the match.
“Creighton is a very, very talented team. We started off a little bit slow and dug ourselves into a hole that we had to try and climb out of,” Speech said. “What I think we did well was showing a lot of grit in the periods that we were fighting back and climbing out. Our middles were very effective and continue to be for us. I also think we continued to serve competitively.”
The Blue and Gray now look forward to another pair of Big East matchups this weekend, taking on Xavier (10-10, 4-3 Big East) and Butler (13-10, 2-5 Big East) in a Midwest road trip.
Georgetown’s first match takes them to Cincinnati, Ohio this Friday to take on Xavier, a team that comes into this match with a streaky conference record of 4-3.
Butler has also had some struggles of its own, coming into this match as losers of three in a row and with an overall conference record of 2-5 despite being 11-5 in the non-conference.
“The road trip is always tough, because it’s October, and our players are in the middle of exams, and they have papers and projects, and they’re already stressed out, and we’re putting them on the road, so that’s always tough,” Coach Williams said. “I think both teams bring us very different things.”
The Hoyas are looking to put together a full match of clean volleyball. Coach Williams noted that many matches have seen the Hoyas play very well in a few aspects of the game but rarely see everything click all at once.
“When you watch us play, you know we are a good serving team, we are a good hitting team, we can be a good blocking team, and we are a good defensive team. We have seen all of the pieces, but we haven’t seen them consistently enough,” Coach Williams said. “For us to be successful this weekend, we have to be consistent from point 0 to point 25. We have to make sure we are minimizing the other teams point scoring opportunities and minimizing their runs.”
The Hoyas will take on the Musketeers on Friday, Oct. 14 and the Bulldogs on Saturday, Oct. 15.
