WASHINGTON – Trailing by two sets on the road, the Georgetown University volleyball team mounted a comeback to defeat Villanova, 3-2 (22-25, 14-25, 25-23, 25-23, 16-14), in BIG EAST action on Saturday afternoon. The win is the second-straight five setter for the Hoyas in the past four days.
Georgetown improves to 9-5 overall and 2-0 in league play, eclipsing its win total from the 2017 season. The last time the Hoyas won consecutive matches to start BIG EAST competition was during the 2001 season.
No stranger to five-set affairs, the Hoyas have now played in five matches that have gone the full distance and have posted a 3-2 mark in those showdowns.
Iva Vujosevic (Bar, Montenegro / Niko Rolovic / UMES) led the Blue & Gray with 22 kills and 19 digs for her seventh double-double of the season.
Symone Speech (Oak Park, Ill. / Oak Park-River Forest) added 14 kills for the Hoyas.
Margo Pivonka (Broadview Heights, Ohio / Walsh Jesuit) paced the offense with a match-high 46 assists to go with five digs and three kills, including the match winner.
Defensively,
Kenzie Higareda (Woodbridge, Va. / Forest Park) anchored the back row with 27 digs while
Jessica Cusi (Pacifica, Calif. / Lick-Wilmerding) added 19 and
Elissa Barbosa (San Antonio, Texas / Ronald Reagan) had 12. At the net, Speech was credited with six blocks, including four solo rejections, while
Brennan Wilhite (Rancho Santa Fe, Calif. / Cathedral Catholic) tallied three.
After coming back from a two-set deficit to force a fifth frame, the Hoyas found themselves in an early 4-1 hole and were down 8-3 at the switch. Undeterred, the Blue & Gray slowly began to chip away at Villanova's lead and used a 5-1 run to pull within one, 13-12, and force a VU timeout. Coming out of the huddle, the Hoyas knotted the score at 13-13 and fended off a Villanova match point at 14-13 to close out the contest with three-straight points on consecutive kills from Vujosevic, Speech and Pivonka.
Dropping the opening two sets, 25-22 and 25-14, the Hoyas had their work cut out for them. Both squads put together their best offensive frames in the third with Georgetown recording 16 kills at a .282 clip and the Wildcats registering a match-high 17 kills while hitting .366. After a back-and-forth start to the set, the Blue & Gray used a 7-3 outburst to take a comfortable 14-9 lead and had its first set point at 24-20. Three-straight points from the Wildcats made it a one-point frame again, but Barbosa sealed the 25-23 win for the Hoyas with a kill.
An early 3-0 lead in the fourth set turned to a 13-8 advantage for Georgetown before Villanova began to mount a comeback. Chipping away at the lead, the Wildcats tied things up at 20-20 and again at 23-23, but a huge block from Pivonka and Speech gave GU set point before Riley Wertzeberger (Dallas, Texas / Richardson) sent the match to five with a kill from Cusi to give the Hoyas a 24-23 set victory.
Mallory Potts led Villanova (8-6, 1-1 BIG EAST) with 18 kills while Clare Delaplane had 14 and Amanda Pedersen-Henry chipped in 11. Regan Lough led all players with 30 digs in the loss.
Georgetown returns to the friendly confines of McDonough Arena on Wednesday, September 26 as it hosts BIG EAST foe Seton Hall at 5 p.m.
