Press Release courtesy of Georgetown Athletics
Georgetown University volleyball standout Symone Speech (Oak Park, Ill./Oak Park-River Forest) has been invited to the U.S. Women’s National Team Open Tryout, taking place March 2-4 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. She is one of 230 athletes from 90 schools vying for a spot on the U.S. Women’s National Team and the U.S. Collegiate National Team program.
Speech is one of 49 middles participating in the tryouts. She is also one of just six players from the BIG EAST Conference to make the trip to Colorado.
“The thing I am looking forward to the most is the opportunity to learn,” Speech said about the event. “I am going to be surrounded by some of the best players and most credited coaches in the country. I plan on taking advantage of the opportunity I have to play with them and I’m going to try to absorb as much information as possible. I expect it to be a very intense and competitive environment and I’m really looking forward to it.”
The tryout will involve four sessions with three waves per session. U.S. Women’s National Team Head Coach Karch Kiraly will direct the entire tryout process. Speech will compete on Friday with the White tryout wave beginning at 6 p.m. EST.
All sessions, minus the USA training session on Sunday morning, will be streamed live and available for free by clicking here.
Tabbed All-Region by the American Volleyball Coaches Association and First Team All-BIG EAST, Speech put together a dominant season on the court for Georgetown. She averaged 3.72 kills per set while hitting at an impressive .379 clip. Speech recorded her 1,000th career kill against Marquette, becoming just the 14th player in program history to achieve the feat. Defensively, she was credited with 81 blocks on the season for an 0.78 bps average.
Speech’s hitting percentage led the BIG EAST and she was also third in both kills and kills per set. She recorded at least 10 kills in 24 of Georgetown’s 30 matches, including 12 matches with at least 15 kills and seven with at least 20. Speech notched a career-high 29 kills on Nov. 4 against Seton Hall, and finished the season with 25 kills against then-No. 13 Creighton.
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