All good things must come to an end. The Georgetown men’s lacrosse team learned this lesson on Saturday at unranked Loyola. The Greyhounds stunned the then No. 3 Hoyas by a score of 14-10.
The loss ended an eight-game winning streak and dropped the Hoyas (8-2, 3-1 ECAC) to No. 7 in the USILA/STX coaches’ poll. It also gave the Hoyas their first conference loss of the season. On the other side of the ball, Loyola (5-4, 4-1 ECAC) earned the No. 16 ranking after the win.
“The win is a huge one for our program,” Loyola Head Coach Charley Toomey. “It gives us a chance to remain in playoff contention.”
To make the win even sweeter for Loyola, Toomey was named U.S. Lacrosse Coach of the Week.
Georgetown jumped out to an early 2-0 lead on goals from senior midfielder Pete Cannon and sophomore midfielder Dan D’Agnes.
The Greyhounds responded with two consecutive tallies of their own. The two teams played evenly for the entire first half as the Hoyas clung to a 6-5 lead, entering halftime.
Loyola was able to control the ball well in the contest. The Greyhounds gave the Hoyas trouble in the face-offs by winning 19 of 28. They also rounded up 39 groundballs to Georgetown’s 33.
“One of the things that hurt us was possession,” Hoya Head Coach Dave Urick said. “That hurt us. You have to have the ball to score.”
The Greyhounds began to take advantage of their possessions in the second half, putting pressure on the Hoya defense. Loyola scored six times in the third quarter. Junior midfielder Greg Leonard and junior attackman Ryan Rabidou led the way for the Greyhounds with two goals each in the quarter. They both finished with three goals, and Leonard earned the honor of ECAC Offensive Player of the Week.
“We didn’t make many second half changes,” Toomey said of his squad’s offensive outburst. “We talked primarily about trying to do a better job taking away the inside defensively and handling Georgetown’s defensive pressure offensively.”
The Greyhounds were able to do this while keeping the Hoyas at bay. Georgetown scored only four second half goals to Loyola’s nine as the Greyhounds pulled away for the 14-10 win.
“We need to make sure we don’t dwell on it more that we should,” Urick said of the loss. “It’s going to be interesting to see how these guys respond this week. Now you see a little bit of what we’re made of.”
This week the Hoyas finally get a home game, following three games on the road, against No. 8 UMass (8-2, 3-1 ECAC) this Saturday.
“UMass is very good,” Urick said. “It will be a real good test for us. We’re obviously pretty glad it’s at home. We’ve been in the bus enough.”
