WASHINGTON – Georgetown University's volleyball team swept the final day of the Dig The District Invitational on Saturday to finish the tournament undefeated. The Hoyas defeated Alabama A&M 3-1 (25-19, 25-21, 10-25, 25-10) in the opener before sweeping visiting Loyola Maryland 3-0 (25-18, 25-9, 25-23) in the nightcap.
Symone Speech (Oak Park, Ill. / Oak Park-River Forest),
Iva Vujosevic (Bar, Montenegro / Niko Rolovic / UMES) and
Brennan Wilhite (Rancho Santa Fe, Calif. / Cathedral Catholic / USC) were all named to the All-Tournament Team as the Hoyas went 3-0 over the weekend and posted the best set differential of all participants.
Match 1 – Georgetown 3, Alabama A&M 1
Speech and
Riley Wertzberger (Dallas, Texas / Richardson) led the Hoyas in the opener with 15 kills each while
Alyssa Sinnette (Pearland, Texas / Dawson) added 13. Wertzberger hit an impressive .462 from the outside as the Blue & Gray hit .308 as a team for the entire match.
Margo Pivonka (Broadview Heights, Ohio / Walsh Jesuit) paced the offense with 43 assists while
Jessica Cusi (Pacifica, Calif. / Lick-Wilmerding) added eight.
Defensively,
Kenzie Higareda (Woodbridge, Va. / Forest Park) tied for the match lead with 18 digs while Cusi and Sinnette each tallied nine.
Georgetown took an early 7-3 advantage in the opening set before the Bulldogs began to slowly chip away at the lead. Alabama A&M pulled within one, down 11-10 and again 13-12, before the Blue & Gray started to pull away courtesy of a 6-1 run to take a 19-13 lead. The Bulldogs wouldn't get within any more than four points the rest of the way as GU cruised to the 25-19 set victory.
In the second set, a tight beginning to the frame saw a 13-13 tie before the Hoyas posted a 4-1 outburst to go ahead 17-14 behind the offensive firepower of
Olivia King's (Ardmore, Pa. / Lower Merion) two kills in the span. Although Georgetown was unable to pull away, the Hoyas kept a steady three-point lead the rest of the stanza en route to a 25-21 set decision. Twenty-one of GU's points came off of kills as the Blue & Gray hit a match-best .400 in the set.
Alabama A&M was firing on all cylinders in the third set, hitting .611 as a team while GU couldn't find its rhythm. The Bulldogs claimed the set, 25-10.
In the fourth, the Hoyas flipped the script and dominated the frame. Opening the stanza on a 4-0 run behind the aggressive serving of Sinnette, GU never trailed and never looked back. A 12-4 lead forced AAMU's first timeout, while a 9-3 Georgetown run forced the Bulldogs to burn their final timeout, down 21-7. The Hoyas closed out the match with a 25-10 win in the frame.
Jaelin Gant led Alabama A&M with 11 kills and 10 digs while Zoe McBride added 10 kills to go with 15 digs.
Match 2 – Georgetown 3, Loyola Maryland 0
Speech added another 13 kills with no attack errors to hit .684 against the Greyhounds while Vujosevic added 10 kills. The Hoyas hit .350 as a team, as
Margo Snipe (Washington, D.C. / Ridgewood [N.J.]) hit .583 with seven kills and no errors.
Defensively, Higareda added another 20 digs to lead all players. Snipe was credited with a match-high four blocks and both Speech and Wilhite had three.
A tightly-contested opening frame saw nine ties and four lead changes. Trading points early on, Georgetown eventually claimed a steady three-point advantage until Loyola rallied from 15-12 down with five-straight points to take a 17-15 lead. Clamping down, the Hoyas turned an 18-17 deficit to a 25-18 set victory courtesy of an 8-0 run to close out the frame.
In the second, the Blue & Gray took control early and never looked back. A 6-2 lead forced Loyola to call its first timeout, and a 15-8 advantage sparked the second. A 12-0 run from the Hoyas put the set away as Georgetown won the stanza, 25-9.
Georgetown used its momentum in the third set to lead early, pushing its advantage to five points at 17-12. Still fighting, Loyola rallied back to eventually knot things up at 23-23 but a kill from Wertzberger and a solo block from Vujosevic sealed the 25-23 set victory for the Blue & Gray.
Cat Vaccaro led Loyola with seven kills while Katie Forsythe had 15 digs.
Georgetown returns to action on Wednesday as it hosts St. John's in the BIG EAST opener. First serve is set for 5 p.m. Live stats and video can be found at www.GUHoyas.com with Monika Moore calling the play-by-play.
