Sept. 29 marks one month since the St. John’s Women’s Volleyball team began its 2025 campaign—a month it would surely like to forget. The Johnnies’ 4-11 start is the worst in Head Coach Joanne Persico’s 32 years in Queens.They have opened the Big East Conference play with two home losses, the latest being a 3-0 thrashing by Georgetown on Sept. 2 at Carnesecca Arena.
Historically, trips to Queens for Georgetown spell doom. The Hoyas hadn’t won at Carnesecca dating back to Oct. 2013. St. John’s had dominated the series overall, winning 17 of the next 18 contests after that 2013 match, with the lone loss occurring in D.C. in 2018. However, Saturday’s game quickly made it clear that the eight-game win streak the Johnnies held wouldn’t continue.
St. John’s lost in its three sets with scores of 25-18, 25-16 and 25-13; it still doesn’t reflect Georgetown’s dominance. The Hoyas controlled the net with 40 kills and nine blocks, while often disrupting other St. John’s attacks with their size threat alone.
Their strong back-row play resulted in 40 digs, and the team also served up eight aces. Outside hitter Dionna Mitchell was a standout, landing 13 kills on 28 attacks, while Katherine McGregor and Berkeley Ploder contributed with six and five block assists, respectively.
The Johnnies struggled to produce bright spots. Erin Jones, following up a season-high 23 kills against Villanova, managed only nine in this match. Jones led the Red Storm with 12 assists and tied Rashanny Solano Smith with a team-high nine digs. The team’s blocking was minimal—it tallied just four—and a woeful .105 attacking percentage was surprisingly one of its better finishes this season.
Georgetown quickly established a 16-6 lead in the first set, but were held up by two St. John’s injury scares. Just as the game was beginning, Solano Smith crashed into the scorer’s table chasing a loose ball, but remained in the game, likely just having had the wind knocked out of her. Minutes later, setter Martina Capponcelli landed awkwardly on her right ankle near the net and had to be helped off the floor, she would later return in the second set.
Perhaps unsettled by the events on the opposite side or the extended stoppages, the Hoyas briefly dropped their intensity following their fast start. They still appeared to be toying with St. John’s, even when Smith served two consecutive aces to cut the deficit to four. Georgetown ultimately won the set by forcing numerous Johnnie errors.
The second and third sets were largely the same. Smith repeatedly found herself on the floor after unsuccessful dives against Hoya kills, and when she wasn’t, mistakes piled up quickly for St. John’s.
The Red Storm managed to eke out points, but in both sets, they fell fast into 10-point holes. A late run of kills in the second set got them to 16 points, but there was no such resistance in the third. Georgetown won both sets handily, improving to 9-6 overall and completing a perfect New York-area trip after beating Seton Hall the previous day.
St. John’s will try to curb its three-game losing streak when it visits Providence on Oct. 3 and UConn on Oct. 4. The Johnnies return to Carnesecca on Oct. 10 against DePaul at 7 p.m.
