The Georgetown women’s lacrosse team was ranked first in the nation by the Brine/Intercollegiate Women’s Lacrosse Coaches Poll for the first time in the history of the program yesterday.
“Its just exciting,” said senior All-American attack Erin Elbe. “But our coaches and our team never take the rankings into consideration. It’s a big step, but it doesn’t matter until [the NCAA championship game] that we’re number one,” she said.
The Hoyas are off to a 5-0 start, most recently posting two Big East wins against Virginia Tech and Syracuse. Against Virginia Tech on March 10, sophomore midfielder Gloria Lozano had two goals and two assists, with Elbe and first-year midfielder Lauryn Bernier adding two goals apiece. The Hoyas outshot the Hokies 39-13 in their 11-9 victory.
Despite their dominating statistics, Head Coach Kim Simons was not entirely pleased with the team’s performance against Virginia Tech. “We didn’t come out ready to play, and I think we acted like we expected to win even if we didn’t play hard … Every time they came down the field they were getting a good scoring opportunity or a goal,” she said.
In their second Big East victory, the Hoyas trounced the Orangewomen 11-6 at the Carrier Dome in New York. Lazano had a hat trick to once again lead Georgetown’s scoring effort. Senior goalie Chandler Vicchio had her best game of the season with seven saves.
“We had a great team effort offensively and defensively, which is key,” said Simons. “The scoring was really balanced. That’s one of the toughest things about playing us: Any attacker can score.”
Bernier and senior attack Kate Ahearn racked up two goals each in the contest, with Elbe, junior attack Wick Stanwick and first-year midfielder Allison Chambers contributing goals as well.
The Hoyas travel to Durham, N.C. to face former No. 1 ranked Duke this Sunday. The Blue Devils fell to 5-2 this week after losses to North Carolina and Princeton. Though Duke is currently ranked No. 5, the game is the biggest of the season thus far for the Hoyas.
“We only have limited experience being the favorite in these kinds of games,” Simons said. “We need to play a complete game and we need to play hard from the beginning. We need to control the tempo. Stopping them on the defensive end in key moments is really important against teams like Duke because you don’t want them to get into a rhythm with scoring.”
The Hoyas finished last season ranked No. 2, losing to Maryland in the NCAA Championship game. The coach and the players agree that this year’s team will handle the pressures of being post-season favorites differently than the 2000-2001 squad.
“We’re a lot younger and more inexperienced,” said Lazano. “We don’t talk about last year or the Final Four games, which is good because we have a fresh perspective. Last year everyone was very focused on making the Final Four. This year, we know we can get back there, so we take it game by game.”
According to Simons, focusing on each game individually will be imperative for maintaining the team’s momentum through May. “From here on out our schedule is either Big East or top-15 teams, so there’s no game that isn’t a big game. As a coaching staff, it’s hard to constantly emphasize, ‘You need to be up, you need to be up,’ so that is something the team is going to have to find on their own,” she said.
The Hoyas know that they can’t get sidetracked by their history-making success in the polls if they want to make it back to the NCAA Championship this season.
“We need to put the rankings behind us and take the season one game at a time,” said Elbe.
