Sports

Women win in OT thriller

April 29, 2010


Before the opening draw against Loyola on Wednesday night, the seniors on the Georgetown women’s lacrosse team were honored in a ceremony for their final home game. Later, with 17 minutes left to play in the game, it looked like that would be the last happy memory the seniors would have on the Multi-Sport Field.  With almost three-fourths of the game having gone by, the Hoyas stared down a seven goal deficit, as Loyola’s Grace Gavin scored the Greyhounds’ fifth unanswered goal to take an 11-4 lead.

But the seniors wouldn’t give up their last home game without a fight. Georgetown (10-5, 7-0 Big East) rallied back, rattling off seven straight goals to take the game to overtime. The Hoyas finally prevailed 13-12 in double overtime on senior Ashby Kaestner’s game-winner.

“I had been making mistakes all game and I had started dwelling on them, and I just stopped,” Kaestner said. “No one was even thinking, we were just getting the ball in the goal.”

The problem early on was that Georgetown had been thinking too much. They allowed Loyola to take a 3-0 lead early and struggled to recover for most of the first half. It was only when the Hoyas allowed the game to come to them that they were able to succeed.

“I think the biggest thing was we started playing instead of trying to play perfectly,”  Head Coach Ricky Fried said. “The goals weren’t all scripted goals, they weren’t all set plays. The players were making plays and that’s the way it’s got to be for us.”

The Georgetown comeback started soon after Loyola took their seven goal lead, with junior Jordy Kirr scoring back-to-back goals in a span of 30 seconds. Kirr led the Hoyas with four goals on the game. From there on out, the Hoyas were in control.

“We haven’t had momentum all season,” Kaestner said. “This was the first game we had momentum, clear momentum.”

It wasn’t until 1:19 was left on the clock that the Hoyas finally got the equalizer, as freshman Sophia Thomas scored off an assist.from Kirr.

The Hoyas’ momentum carried into overtime, where they dominated the ball for most of the first period of extra play. Graduate student Bunny O’Reilly scored the go-ahead goal, and all Georgetown had to do was hold on for three minutes.

For two minutes and fifty four seconds they did. But the exuberant Hoyas just couldn’t wait the final six seconds. Senior goalie Formby laid the ball down to run out the clock, and Georgetown started celebrating. Unfortunately a Hoya attacker went offside during the celebration, giving Loyola one last shot.

After they cleared out all the Hoyas, who had rushed onto the field in the excitement, Loyola managed to tie it up off the penalty shot with four seconds left.

Thankfully for the Hoyas, Kaestner was there to save the day with the goal in sudden death double overtime, a fitting end to a thrilling Senior Day.

“If you look at the whole game I think it reflected perfectly in their play,” Fried said of his seniors. “I think a lot of them were tight coming into the game. [They] played a little tentatively, dropped some passes, did some uncharacteristic things. But they came up huge when they needed to.”




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