Junior middle blocker Symone Speech and junior outside hitter Alyssa Sinnette each reached 1,000 career kills for the Hoyas this weekend, joining the ranks of 13 other Georgetown players in history to have ever achieved the milestone.
The juniors accomplished the feat as Georgetown University volleyball (8-21, 2-15 Big East) split its weekend matches with a win and a loss, falling short 3-0 against Marquette (20-8, 14-3 Big East) on Friday, but defeating DePaul (8-21, 2-15 Big East) 3-1 Sunday afternoon.
Junior middle blocker Symone Speech, center, joined teammate and junior outside hitter Aylssa Sinnette in reaching 1,000 career kills for Georgetown volleyball, a feat only 13 other Hoyas have ever accomplished.
Speech entered Friday’s match with 995 kills and bounced the 1,000th kill at the beginning of the third set. Speech joined the other 126 active players — only 19 of whom are fellow juniors — with 1,000 career kills. Adding to her achievements, Speech was named to the Big East Weekly Honor Roll for the fourth time this season following her performance over the weekend.
Speech and Sinnette led the Hoyas with 11 and five kills against Marquette, respectively. On the defensive end, junior libero Kenzie Higareda tallied an impressive 16 digs.
Despite these strong individual efforts, the match was dominated by Marquette from the start. The Golden Eagles won three straight sets 25-12, 25-9, 25-18 on their way to improving to 13-3 in the division and 19-8 overall.
Two days later, Georgetown travelled with a chip on its shoulder to Chicago to spar against DePaul, a team also struggling to scrape away wins in a tough Big East division. During the match, the Hoyas played with heart and grit as they ultimately snapped a 12-game losing streak and claimed their first road win of the season with set scores of 25-17, 19-25, 25-22, and 25-17.
Sinnette had 10 digs, hit .270 and led Georgetown with 15 kills in her milestone performance. Speech and graduate middle blocker Aima Eichie had respective kill percentages of .333 and .471, producing a respective 13 and nine kills for the pair. Junior setter Paige McKnight had a spectacular performance with five kills, seven digs and abundant perfect sets for her teammates.
The Hoyas will look to translate their momentum into wins before the approaching end of the 2017 season. Next week, Georgetown returns to McDonough Arena with a pair of tough Big East matchups, first against Providence (16-15, 5-11 Big East) on Friday and then against Creighton (22-5, 15-1 Big East) in its season finale Saturday.
Each match is slated to begin at 6 p.m.
