Szewinski, Heinemann quiet Red Storm for 2nd time

Georgetown traveled to Rio Grande on Friday night to begin the second round of play in the River States Conference. The Tigers took care of business with a 3-1 win to finish a regular season sweep of the Red Storm and keep pace atop the RSC standings.

The Tigers had an early lead in the 1st set, although the teams traded quick points and serves. Georgetown eventually took a 14-12 lead. Rio Grande came back with 4 in a row for its own lead of 2. The Red Storm then gave 2 points back with errors as the set was deadlocked at 16. The Red Storm's offense kept attacking to maintain a small lead. Georgetown could not get back over the top, getting as close as 1, but Rio took the opener, 25-22, thanks to 16 kills in the set.

The set loss fired up Georgetown going into the 2nd. The Tigers came roaring out to a 5-1 lead and never looked back. Rio Grande scored 2 to get within 5-3 but would never get closer the rest of the set. Georgetown gradually stretched the lead out to 7 at 16-9. Rio Grande got 1 back, but Georgetown scored the next 4 for a 20-10 lead. On the strength of the offense hitting .500 and the defense holding Rio to .083, Georgetown cruised to a 25-14 win to level the match at a set apiece.

Set 3 was tight to start. The teams split the first 8 points. Georgetown then grabbed the next 2 on the strength of kills by Kristjan Unt and Santino Zucchiati on passes from Finn Heinemann. Rio Grande fired back with 4 straight to claim an 8-6 lead on the Tigers. Georgetown called a timeout to regroup. The move paid off in spades. A combination of Tiger hitting prowess and Rio errors resulted in Georgetown going on an 11-3 run to surge ahead to a 17-11 advantage. Rio Grande then called a timeout looking for similar magic. It was fleeting at best. Rio scored 2 straight, but  Georgetown followed with the next 2 to put any hope of a comeback to rest. Georgetown hit .469 with 17 kills in the set to win it, 25-19 and go up 2-1 in the match.

The Polish duo of Michal Bak and Adam Szewinski combined for tandem blocks on the first 2 points of the 4th set to give Georgetown the quick lead. Rio Grande errors then began to build, allowing Georgetown to stay ahead. Leading 11-7, Georgetown removed all doubt by taking the next 7 points for an 11-point lead. Rio Grande committed 3 attack errors in the run and a 4th was caused by a tandem block from Kristjan Unt and Adam Szewinski. Rio scored 2 to cut its deficit to 18-9. Georgetown then scored 6 of 7 for a 24-10 lead. Miguel Ariza Vega put the capper on the win with a final kill from Finn Heinemann for a 25-13 set win.

Finn Heinemann dished out 45 assists to go with 11 digs. Adam Szewinski was nearly flawless in the middle. The sophomore tallied 13 kills with a hitting percentage of .722. He also had 7 block assists. Robin Puss finished with 11 kills on the opposite side of Michal Bak, who finished 1 kill shy of a double-double (9 kills, 13 digs).

Georgetown is next in action on Friday, March 28th, at Indiana East. First serve is set for 6:00pm.