Due to their proximity and similar athletic status, some claim that Georgetown and Maryland share a crosstown rivalry. It’s hard to say that rivalry even exists in men’s soccer—rivalry requires competition. Before their meeting at North Kehoe Field earlier this week, the No. 6 Terrapins had won all 26 matches they’ve played against the Hoyas. On Tuesday, Georgetown showed that it can keep things competitive, but Maryland nevertheless extended its streak to 27 games.
Georgetown (8-4-1, 5-2-0 Big East) was not intimidated playing the defending national champions, but two early lapses proved insurmountable and Maryland prevailed 2-1.
The Terrapins got things going early, taking advantage of an unsettled Hoya defense in the eighth minute, when a header by senior Drew Yates went past junior keeper Mark Wilber for the opening goal.
“They’re a very active, busy team and they were taking advantage of the gap in front of our backs pretty well,” head coach Brian Wiese said. “Our back four was having a hard time making decisions, do they step [up] or do they kind of be conservative and make sure nobody gets behind them. You give good players that kind of space and time and they’re going to get some looks.”
The looks kept coming for Maryland, and the Terrapins capitalized again just four minutes later. The Hoyas were shocked to find themselves trailing 2-0 just 12 minutes into the game.
“We kind of looked at each other like, did that really just happen? There was so much time left and we’re like, ‘We’re down two-nothing, this is ridiculous,’” junior forward Jose Colchao said.
It looked like matters would only get worse for Georgetown, when Wilber, never one to shy away from an attacker, went down in the 29th minute after colliding with a Maryland player and was forced to leave the game. After the game his status wasn’t clear, but Wiese suspected he may have suffered a concussion.
Luckily, the Hoyas had a capable replacement in goal with junior Matthew Brutto. Brutto kept the Terrapins off the board the rest of the way, but he only needed to make one save. The entire Georgetown squad seemed to buckle down, taking control of the final two-thirds of the match.
The Hoyas began to go on the attack, and managed to halve the deficit before the break. Freshman Jimmy Nealis scored his first career goal in the 32nd minute on an assist by junior Chandler Diggs.
“The ball kind of just bounced down and came right to me,” Nealis said. “It was cool to get my first collegiate goal, but beating Maryland probably would have been the more favorable thing.”
Nealis’s goal gave Georgetown momentum heading into the second half, and with Maryland content to play back in a defensive formation, the Hoyas found themselves spending plenty of time in their opponent’s half of the field. In the early going of the second period it seemed they were destined to score the equalizer.
The Hoyas outshot the Terrapins 12 to 2 in the second half, and they had four corners and numerous throws deep in Maryland territory. Every opportunity, however, seemed to go wide or high, or was stopped with a timely block by a Maryland defender.
“The hardest thing in soccer is putting it in,” Wiese said. “It looked like there were twelve red shirts between us and the goal every time we tried to pull the trigger. You’re just waiting for one little bit to maybe bounce your way, and in the end [we] just ran out of time.”
The bright side to the Hoyas’ defeat is that the Terrapins are an ACC team, meaning the loss does not affect the team’s position in the Big East. But any close loss to a top-ranked team is bound to sting, especially when one more major victory may have earned Georgetown an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament.
“The closer you are the more it hurts,” Colchao said. “If we came out here and had just been dominated or something we would have just been like, ‘Alright, we took it on the chin.’ But we came out here and I thought we competed really well. Maybe that’s the hardest thing. We thought we competed against these long-standing good teams, and we’re right there. But we need another big win.”
