Final Stats

WASHINGTON - Dropping the opening two sets, Georgetown University's volleyball team rallied back to force a deciding fifth frame but couldn't complete the comeback in a 3-2 (25-22, 25-19, 19-25, 23-25, 15-8) loss at Butler in BIG EAST action on Sunday. The Hoyas fall to 7-17 overall and 1-11 in league play.

Symone Speech (Oak Park, Ill./Oak Park-River Forest) led the Blue & Gray with 19 kills while a trio of Hoyas posted double-doubles. Alyssa Sinnette (Pearland, Texas/Dawson) had 17 kills and 13 digs, Riley Wertzberger (Dallas, Texas/Richardson) chipped in 12 kills to go with 11 digs and Paige McKnight (Atlanta, Ga./Dunwoody) added 46 assists and 15 digs.

Defensively, Kenzie Higareda (Woodbridge, Va./Forest Park) led GU with 23 digs to move her into sole possession of third place on the Georgetown career leaderboard with 1,381 digs. At the net, Aima Eichie (Castle Rock, Colo./Rock Canyon/UC Davis) was credited with seven blocks, Speech added five and Emily Herrington (Gainesville, Fla./St. Francis Catholic) chimed in with four.

Down 2-0 after two sets, Georgetown regrouped during the intermission and began its comeback attempt. Trailing early in the third, the Hoyas battled back to tie their hosts at 6-6 and countered every attempt by the Bulldogs to put the match out of reach. The Blue & Gray knotted things up at 17-17 to force a Butler timeout before taking its first lead of the frame at 20-19, part of a 7-0 run to close out the stanza for the 25-19 win.

The fourth set was a back-and-forth affair from the start for an early 7-7 tie. Georgetown would then go on a 9-2 run behind the strong serving of Higareda and Eichie to lead 16-9 before eventually forcing Butler to burn both timeouts, down 20-12. The Bulldogs would rally, slowly cutting away at GU's lead to tie things up at 23-23. Looking to force a deciding fifth set, Georgetown utilized back-to-back kills from Wertzberger and Speech to win the set, 25-23, and the match, 2-2.

In the fifth, Butler led early and took an 8-2 advantage at the switch. Georgetown could not make up the deficit as the Bulldogs did not commit an attack error in the truncated frame.

Butler (19-6, 9-4 BIG EAST) outhit the Blue & Gray in the first two sets and posted 18 kills in the opening frame. The Bulldogs hit .323 in the second with another 14 kills. Georgetown notched just 11 kills in each of the first two stanzas.

Four Bulldogs recorded double-figure kills, led by Anna Logan with 19 to go with 18 digs for a double-double.

Georgetown returns to the friendly confines of McDonough Arena for a pair of home matches this weekend against St. John's and Seton Hall.