Georgetown volleyball (12-10, 5-4 Big East) hadn’t won a game against Marquette volleyball (12-7, 6-3 Big East) since Sept. 26, 2010. It hadn’t won even won a set since 2019.
Not only did the Hoyas snap the streak of sets lost to the Golden Eagles early on, but a late-set four comeback helped propel GU to its first win over Marquette in over 15 years (22-25, 25-17, 25-19, 23-25, 5-15).
The Golden Eagles had swept the Hoyas 21 times in a row heading into Friday night’s matchup at McDonough Arena, and GU quickly made sure that streak wouldn’t extend itself to 22. Georgetown came out at home with its hair on fire, forcing head coach Tom Mendoza to use both his timeouts in the first 26 points of the set with his team trailing 16-10.
Marquette’s offense struggled in the first set, hitting just .120. And even though the Golden Eagles out-killed the Hoyas 11-9 in the frame, it wasn’t enough as GU came away with the set one victory, 25-22.
But after that, Marquette woke up, for the next two sets at least.
The Golden Eagles hit a combined .254 with 27 kills to win sets two and three, winning them 25-17 and 25-19 respectively. Senior outside hitter Natalie Ring tallied 19 kills through the first three sets and had Marquette’s offense rolling.
The blue and gold felt well-positioned to escape D.C. with a four-set win for most of the fourth set. Outside of the first point (when Georgetown led 1-0), the Golden Eagles were either tied or leading for the first 34 points of the set, with their lead blooming to as much as five. It wasn’t until the 35th point when junior outside hitter Grace Albaugh landed a service ace, that Marquette once again trailed, 18-17. The ace was the final point of a 6-0 run that helped put the Hoyas ahead.
The fourth set then became one of runs, with the Golden Eagles then going on a 5-0 run of their own to jump ahead 22-18, just three points away from a match win. First-year outside hitter Mari King, who had just eight kills this season, tallied three straight kills during the run to break into double-digits for the year.
A kill from junior middle blocker Kamryn Lee-Caracci put a halt to Marquette’s run while also starting another for Georgetown. Lee-Caracci would go to the service line five times in a row following her kill as GU went on a 6-0 run. The junior had a chance to put the set away on her sixth serve but committed a service error, giving Marquette a fighter’s chance.
First-year Samantha Soderlund wasn’t having any of it though as she fired a kill home on the next point to secure the set four win for the Hoyas, 25-23.
Georgetown had all the momentum heading into set five and the score reflected it. Before the Golden Eagles even had time to blink they were down 8-2 and switching sides at the midway point of the set. Everything was going the way of the Hoyas.
Soderlund, who was excellent all night for GU, put the finishing touches on her 18-kill night by killing four in the final frame to give her squad the 15-5 win. The Hoyas hit .615 to MU’s .000 in set five.
Ring paced the way with 26 kills for the Golden Eagles — whose chances for an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament just took a massive hit. Coming into Friday, all six of their losses had come to teams inside the top 45 of the NCAA’s latest RPI rankings, but that changed Friday night because Georgetown was ranked 148th.
Furthermore, Marquette has now lost three games in Big East play, and with seven conference games remaining — is in danger of losing four or more conference games for the first time since 2016.
This story was written by Matthew Baltz. He can be reached at matthew.baltz@marquette.edu or on Twitter/X @MatthewBaltzMU.