Final Stats

WASHINGTON - Georgetown University's volleyball team lost its 2017 BIG EAST opener with a 3-1 (25-12, 25-11, 20-25, 25-11) setback to No 15 Creighton on Friday evening. The Hoyas fall to 6-7 overall and 0-1 in league play.

Symone Speech (Oak Park, Ill./Oak Park-River Forest) led Georgetown with a match-high 16 kills and hit at a .343 clip while Olivia King (Ardmore, Pa./Lower Merion) added 11 kills.

Paige McKnight (Atlanta, Ga./Dunwoody) posted a double-double with 32 assists and 12 digs while Kenzie Higareda (Woodbridge, Va./Forest Park) anchored the back row with 16 digs.

Creighton (8-4, 1-0 BIG EAST) took an early 7-2 lead in the opening frame leading to a GU timeout, and eventually led 10-2 before back-to-back kills from Speech and King cut the deficit to 10-4. The Bluejays responded with a 10-5 run to force the Hoyas to take their final timeout. Coming out of the huddle, CU held the Blue & Gray at bay the rest of the frame en route to the 25-12 set win.

In the second set, Creighton posted an early 5-1 lead before the Hoyas responded with four of the next nine points to cut the deficit to 10-5 on a kill from King. A 7-2 run from Creighton followed by spurts of 3-0 and 5-1 to close out the stanza gave the Bluejays a 2-0 lead in the match.

Georgetown battled back in the third set, opening things up with a 3-1 lead behind a pair of Speech kills. The Bluejays countered and eventually took the lead at 8-7, but the resilient Hoyas pushed right back with a 4-2 run to lead 11-10. Creighton would manage to knot things up against at 12-12, but a Speech putaway on the next point gave GU the lead for good and the Blue & Gray closed out the set on a 5-2 run to claim the 25-20 victory.

Creighton looked to put the match away behind an early 8-2 start to the fourth set. Consecutive points from the Hoyas out of a subsequent timeout cut the deficit to four but CU answered with an 8-2 run to lead 16-6 and force GU's final timeout. The Bluejays closed out the frame by winning nine of the final 14 points to seal the 3-1 match decision.

Jaali Winters and Taryn Kloth both notched double-doubles for Creighton with 15 kills each and 13 and 10 digs, respectively. Marysa Wilkinson added 14 kills and Brittany Witt hauled in 20 digs.

Georgetown is back in action on Sunday as it returns to the East Coast to take on Providence in BIG EAST play at 1 p.m. Live stats will be available at www.GUHoyas.com and the match will be broadcast on the BIG EAST Digital Network with Chris Fama calling the action.