Red Storm to Open Second Half of BIG EAST Schedule with Villanova and Georgetown

Match Notes
Live Stats (Both Matches)
Villanova Broadcast
Georgetown Broadcast

The St. John's volleyball team will open the second half of conference play at home against Villanova and Georgetown. The Red Storm will take on the Wildcats on Friday at 7 p.m. and the Hoyas on Saturday at 5 p.m.

Both matches will be broadcast live on ESPN3 and will take place at Carnesecca Arena. There will also be live stats available throughout the duration of each contest.

St. John's posted a 5-4 record in its first trip through the BIG EAST to put the team in fourth place in the conference standings. Five of the nine conference matches for the Johnnies this season have gone to five sets.

The Red Storm has played in 10 matches that have gone the full five sets, which ties the program record set back in 2004. St. John's is 6-4 in those 10 contests.

The Johnnies went 1-1 over the weekend after taking down DePaul in five sets before falling to Marquette in three. Amanda Sanabia and Erica Di Maulo both made moves on the career leaderboards in the match against DePaul.

Sanabia passed Robyn Kurasaki for seventh in program history in career digs. The junior ended the weekend with 1,175 and is currently 123 digs behind Gabriela Petkova for sixth.

The libero also moved into the single-season record book over the weekend as well. Sanabia has 495 digs in 2018, and passed her own total from 2017 against Marquette to move into sixth place for digs in a season. Shawna-Lei Santos sits above her with her 524 digs she posted in 2014.

Di Maulo moved into fourth in career assists with her 60 assists against the Blue Demons. The setter passed Deniz Mutlugil for fifth and now sits behind Wioleta Leszczynska, who finished her career in Queens with 4,374.

Villanova enters this match 11-10 and 5-4 in conference after defeating Xavier and DePaul in straight sets last week. The team split its weekend home stand with a four-set win over Providence before falling to #10 Creighton in four sets.

Clare Delaplane ranks third in conference play averaging 3.78 kills per set in Villanova's BIG EAST matches. The freshman ranks first on the team overall with 232 kills in 2018 and is the reigning BIG EAST Freshman of the Week.

Josh Steinbach is in his 12th season at Villanova and has won more matches than any other coach in Villanova's history. He was named the 2015 AVCA East Coast Region Coach of the Year and comes off a season that had the Wildcats back in the BIG EAST Tournament after an 18-12 finish. The team lost to Creighton in the first round.

St. John's played Villanova for the first time this season on Sept. 25 at Villanova. The Wildcats came out with a five-set win over the Johnnies in that match. In the loss, Sanabia posted a career-high 34 digs while Di Maulo and Efrosini Alexakou each posted double-doubles. Villanova leads the all-time series between the two schools 19-13 with the Johnnies 7-9 at home against the Wildcats.

Georgetown comes into the match with a 13-8 record and also went 1-1 over the weekend. The Hoyas fell to Creighton in straight sets before defeating Providence in four sets on Saturday to improve to 6-3 in conference play.

Iva Vujosevic is one of three Hoyas to rank in the Top 10 in the conference in kills per set. She ranks fifth with 3.54 while Symone Speech comes in seventh at 3.11 and Alyssa Sinnette is ninth with 3.04. Vujosevic is also efficient with the serve as she ranks 20th in the nation with 0.47 service aces per set and tied for 26th with 32 service aces.

Toby Rens is in his first season as the head coach of Georgetown and enters with 378 career wins prior to the 2018 season after coaching at Northern Michigan, Maryland Eastern Shore, LIU Brooklyn, Pittsburgh, and Chicago State.

Georgetown took the first meeting between these two schools in the first BIG EAST match of 2018 for the Red Storm on Sept. 19 on the road. Erica Di Maulo notched career assist 3,000 in the loss, while Nia Diaz finished the match with six kills on 11 chances for a hitting percentage of .545. The Red Storm still owns a 20-10 series lead over the Hoyas, and has not lost at Carnesecca Arena against Georgetown since 2013.

Red Storm to Open Second Half of BIG EAST Schedule with Villanova and Georgetown

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Players Mentioned

Efrosini Alexakou

Erica Di Maulo

Nia Diaz

Amanda Sanabia

St. John's University Athletics