Coming off a four-game home stretch, Georgetown Volleyball looks to break a six-match losing streak this weekend as they travel to play Big East foes Seton Hall and St. John’s.
The Hoyas (6-19, 2-10 Big East) dropped two matches this past weekend in games against the DePaul Blue Demons (13-12, 7-6 Big East) and the Marquette Golden Eagles (20-5, 10-3 Big East) and will look to find a rhythm in this road trip to the New York/New Jersey area.
Georgetown Head Coach Arlisa Williams said she was encouraged by the team’s strong starts against both DePaul and Marquette, emphasizing how important it is for the team to capture the energy and enthusiasm it showed in the opening sets against DePaul and Marquette .
“The team came out both nights just with awesome energy. The communication, the cheering, the supporting, the encouragement of each other was phenomenal,” Williams said. “And that is hard work cheering for each other that long, so we started to taper off a little bit. So we’ve been working on that in practice keeping up that energy level, because that is what makes a significant difference.”
Bringing that energy may set the Hoyas over the edge against each of their coming opponents, the Seton Hall Pirates (12-14, 6-7 Big East) and the St. John’s Red Storm (13-13, 4-9 Big East). In each previous match for Georgetown, the team played incredibly close matches but was unable to seize momentum at key moments to finish through sets that were decided by two or three points.
Williams stressed that playing consistent, low-error volleyball will be a decisive factor in ensuring that the Hoyas seize the late game momentum and finish strong in this road trip.
“The biggest thing for us, because we do know how to execute well, is to make sure we remain consistent, and we have been up and down as far as our consistency. From there we must play low-error volleyball. If you look at the beginning of the DePaul match, we played high-energy and low-error volleyball, and we only had about three points that we just gave away. But as we got farther into the match that number increased, so we cannot afford to give away that many points if we want to win,” Williams said.
In the first of two matches, Georgetown will face Seton Hall, a team that brings in a decisive win against Providence and has had an up and down conference slate. With the top four teams in the Big East qualifying for tournament positions, Seton Hall comes into this match 1.5 games back of fourth place Villanova, making this a huge match for the Pirates.
The second match up features a St. John’s team that features a balanced attack with five players totaling over 130 kills on the season. St. John’s also boasts a defensive ace in redshirt junior Danisha Moss, who leads her team with 132 blocks this season, which is good for 11th in the nation for blocks, while also ranking 17th in the NCAA by averaging 1.42 blocks per set. Her presence will force Georgetown’s attack to play precise volleyball and create good looks for sophomores Alyssa Sinnette and Symone Speech to run the offense against Moss and the Red Storm defense.
Williams said the team’s attitude and energy has been better throughout the week and will be a key factor to the Hoyas breaking their six-match losing streak.
“The great thing about coaching this group right now is that they recognize that we are better when they [keep their energy high]. They have focused on that in practice and made it one of their goals to be communicating and coming in with positive energy,” Williams said.
Georgetown starts their road trip by heading north to New Jersey to face Seton Hall in a Friday night tipoff, starting at 7 p.m. Georgetown then heads to New York City to take on St. John’s in a Saturday evening showdown, which will be televised on ESPN3.
