If you had left at halftime of yesterday’s Georgetown women’s lacrosse game against Maryland, you would have thought the Hoyas were poised to hand the No. 1 Terps their first loss of the season. The upset was not to be, however, as No. 6 Georgetown succumbed to a second-half slide that dropped its all-time record against Maryland to 1-13.
With less than a minute to go in the first half, Hoyas senior attack Wick Stanwick, who was trapped with the ball behind the Maryland goal, made a mad dash to the outside of the field and found senior midfielder Liz Ryan. Ryan passed it inside to senior attack Hillary Polk-Williams, who muscled through the swarming Terps defense and flicked in a buzzer-beater with one second remaining, igniting the crowd at North Kehoe Field.
It was a fitting end to a stellar half for the Hoyas, who appeared confident and sharp from the game’s opening goal by sophomore attack Sarah Oliphant and pulled out to a 3-1 lead within 12 minutes of play.
“In the first half, we came out just how we wanted and played Georgetown lacrosse,” said sophomore midfielder Lauryn Bernier. “We took control of the game.”
Though the two teams traded goals throughout the first 30 minutes, Georgetown’s intensity appeared to be dictating the game. With 11:32 left in the half, sophomore midfielder Allison Chambers lost her footing battling defenders in front of the Maryland cage. As she pitched forward onto the turf, Chambers let off a shot that whizzed past stunned Maryland goalie senior Alexis Venechanos and into the bottom of the net, upping the Hoyas’ lead to 6-4.
“Our defense opened up some opportunities for [Georgetown] in the first half, and they definitely took them,” said Maryland Head Coach Cindy Timchal.
Georgetown’s hustle earned them an 8-5 advantage leaving the period. They dominated the statistics, outshooting Maryland 15-9 and forcing eight turnovers to Maryland’s three.
After halftime, it was an entirely different story.
In a preview of things to come, Maryland first-year attack Delia Cox burst open the half in the first minute of play with a lightening-quick run to the Hoyas’ cage to pull the Terps within two.
“I just told myself to go,” said Cox. “In the second half it’s always 0-0 again, so we just played our game. We still had 30 minutes, we knew our goals, and we accomplished them.”
Cox’s goal sparked a 4-0 run for Maryland that gave them the lead with 18:35 remaining. The Hoyas took a time out and returned looking momentarily rejuvenated, as junior midfielder Gloria Lozano won the face-off and junior midfielder Anouk Peters finally found the net for Georgetown to tie the game at 9-9.
The Terps answered with three straight goals, sprinting down the field on its possessions and keeping the ball in constant motion, while the beleaguered-looking Hoyas continued to lose steam. Lozano managed to snag a final goal for Georgetown off a ground ball from a shot by Peters, but Maryland closed out the scoring with a goal from junior midfielder Kelly Coppedge to win the game, 13-10.
Georgetown Head Coach Kim Simons pointed to poor shooting as a reason for the Hoyas’ second-half woes. Georgetown connected on only two of 13 shots, as opposed to eight out of 10 for the Terps.
“Our shooting was horrendous,” she said. “None of our players made good shots, even the ones that went in. We won’t beat Podunk U. shooting like that.”
Peters and Stanwick tallied two goals apiece to lead the Hoyas. Cox led all scorers with four goals for the Terps, all in the second half, while Coppedge added three.
“If you let Maryland control the tempo, they will win,” said Simons. “It was leadership, intensity, focus-all those clich?s that coaches love, we were lacking in the second half.”
“In the first half, we were communicating left and right, offense and defense,” added Peters. “Once [Maryland] got the first goal of the second half, that stopped. We were all waiting for other players to pick it up instead of being responsible for ourselves.”
The Hoyas have struggled against highly ranked teams this season, dropping games to No. 3 Duke on March 22, 14-11, and No. 5 Princeton on March 28, 13-11 in overtime. According to Bernier, those losses resulted from problems with leadership and communication that were “pretty similar” to those plaguing Georgetown against Maryland.
The Hoyas will be attempting to forget their recent defeats as the team heads to the University of North Carolina to face the No. 11 Tar Heels on April 6.
“Right now we’re trying to look past the rankings and all that and just see what we have to do next,” said Peters. “We really let it slip through our fingers this time.”
