VILLANOVA, Pa. – The Villanova volleyball team played host to the Seton Hall Pirates on Saturday, taking a four-set loss (21-25, 25-20, 22-25, 17-25) to close the weekend.

"We're on an upward trend, but Seton Hall played really well tonight," head coach Josh Steinbach said. "It wasn't our cleanest game, we have some things to improve. But we made good plays and have some things to be proud of from this one."

Kathleen Johnson paced Villanova (5-11, 1-3 BIG EAST) with a career-high 17 kills on a hitting percentage of .457, while Rose Crist (14) and Riley Homer (10) also notched double-digit terminations. 

Andrea Campos totaled a double-double with 11 digs and a match-high 36 assists, and two Wildcats (Elizabeth Feczko and Taryn Whittingham) each tallied double-digit digs.

The Wildcats dominated early in the first set, taking leads of 4-0 and 6-1 to start the match. But Seton Hall would close the gap and take its first lead at 14-13 after a 5-0 scoring run. SHU carried that momentum into a 25-21 set victory.

The sides traded points to begin the second stanza, with neither team taking a big advantage until Villanova secured momentum and captured the frame 25-20.

VU started the third much like the first, picking up early leads of 7-3 and 9-4. Seton Hall turned it around, though, going up 17-16 to prompt a Wildcat timeout. The Pirates kept up the effort and moved to a 25-22 win.

SHU took a 10-5 lead to open the fourth and powered through the end of the match, winning the final stanza 25-17.

UP NEXT: The 'Cats will now travel to Washington, D.C. for their first midweek contest of the year, taking on Georgetown at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 5.