Entering Saturday’s contest against Hobart, the no. 6 Georgetown men’s lacrosse team knew that they had more to lose by falling than their unheralded opponent. However, head Coach Dave Urick also had particular motivation to win the game, having come to Georgetown from Hobart, where he won 10 consecutive Division III national titles for the school. While struggling through lapses of uninspired play where the Hoyas (4-1) were out-hustled by the Statesmen (2-3), the team held off a furious Hobart rally in a chaotic final two minutes to defeat the Statesmen for their fourth consecutive victory.
Junior midfielder Nick Miaritis, who led the Hoyas with a three assist hat trick and two goals, opened the scoring 3:02 into the first period when he fired a shot past the right stick-side of Hobart goalie Dan Valente. After a back and forth stretch and eventual 2-2 tie, Georgetown went on a three goal run to a 5-2 lead. The streak was started by Miaritis’s first assist to senior co-captain Walid Hajj, who would also benefit with goals off of Miaritis’ other two assists as well. “We knew we were capable of scoring goals on this defense,” Hajj said. Sophomore attackman Sean Denihan, earning his first start of the season, added a goal off a beautiful assist from first-year attackman Trevor Casey as he cut from behind the cage.
Still, Hobart would prove resilient in the first half, rallying behind attackman Mike Conklin’s second goal of the game and the first tally from midfielder Patrick Meade. The goals sandwiched a second Hajj goal off of a Miaritis assist with 2:52 left in the half, and the teams entered halftime in a surprisingly tight 6-4 game.
Hobart would weather an early energy spurt by the Hoyas and would respond with a sparkplug on their offensive end. Chris David, an offensive midfielder who rarely creates shots, scored two goals in 30 seconds to pull the Statesmen to 7-6 and ignite the Hobart bench and fans that made the trek down from upstate New York.
With momentum now on their side Hobart retained possession for much of the second-half of the third quarter and into the fourth, until Conklin’s shot at 10:08 of the final period sailed past Georgetown junior goalie Rich D’Andrea and tied the score at seven. The Statesman bench and fans erupted and left the Hoyas, favorites entering the game, shell-shocked. Urick immediately called a time-out, and the team responded with a new intensity, holding off the Hobart threats over the next eight minutes and creating matchups they felt they could exploit.
Those mismatches had clearly involved Miaritis and Hajj throughout the game, and the Hoyas deliberately tried to set up their star midfielders with cutting and feeding opportunities. The tactic would quickly prove successful, as Miaritis fed Hajj for his third assist to his linemate in the game, and Hajj’s rocket of a shot easily beat Valente to give the Hoyas back a tenuous one-goal led. Miaritis was able to isolate his middie defender behind the goal, and his ensuing dodge forced the Hobart defense to adjust off of Hajj giving him the open look. “For a few games Nick’s been really hot,” Hajj said. “We’ve been using that play, called Jet, a lot. Nick isolates behind and beats his man on a dodge, and when the double team comes he gets the dump to me.” The Georgetown middies switched roles for their final score, a Miaritis goal off a Hajj assist for a much-needed two-goal cushion with 6:55 left in the game.
The intensity then swung to the Hoyas defense, which had to weather the final Hobart flurry to maintain the win. The Statesman would pelt goalie Rich D’Andrea with shots over the final seven minutes, but the junior goalie kept his composure and made a number of key saves to ensure the victory. The Georgetown defense, despite a few lapses, seemed reminiscent of the overpowering Urick-coached defenses of the past, intercepting passes when a man down, taking away the ball in close defense, and completing cross-field passes with ease en route to their near perfect 21-22 on clears.
While the final seven minutes were a bitter battle between the squads, the closing two minutes were particularly intense. With just over a minute left, D’Andrea made a point blank save, swatting away a Mark Williamson shot three feet away from the cage. Taking the ball out to clear, D’Andrea lost the ball, which rolled directly to Williamson. Two Georgetown defenders, junior Andrew Braziel, who was named Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference defensive player of the week, and sophomore Reyn Garnett, instinctively collapsed into the goal. Hobart quickly launched a shot, and Garnett made an incredible save off the shaft of his stick, which led to a Georgetown clear and helped the Hoyas kill 30 seconds of the clock. With 23 seconds left, Hobart developed a fast break, culminating in a shot from Hobart midfielder Dan Molinari and another amazing save from D’Andrea. Molinari immediately scooped up the rebound from D’Andrea’s swatting save, but the goalie made an incredible hockey-like kick save, sliding to the right and blocking Molinari’s bounce shot with his foot.
The win was particularly important for Urick, as he is the root of the many confluences between the two programs. Urick left Hobart in 1990 to coach Division I lacrosse at Georgetown, and both programs’ rise to national prominence have come under his guidance. His legacy lives at Hobart, however, as the Statesman became a Division I program only two years after his departure. Hobart Head Coach Matt Kerwick is a former player for Urick at Hobart, but has yet to defeat his mentor, with this year’s victory marking Georgetown’s ninth straight over the Statesmen.
