It is now officially safe to say that the Georgetown men’s soccer team is on the rise. After a shaky preseason and an unconvincing start to the fall of 2013 which included losses to UC Berkeley (5-0-1, 0-0 Pac -12) and New Mexico (4-2-1, 0-0 C-USA), the Hoyas are on a four-game winning streak. Head Coach Brian Wiese and his troops have certainly picked up the pace of their play.
Despite entering their last game against Princeton with momentum, Georgetown came out slow and paid the price in the 24th minute when Princeton forward Nick Hurtado sent a shot sailing past junior goalkeeper Tomas Gomez. The test for the Hoyas then was to respond positively.
“We just tried to regain calm,” said sophomore defender Cole Seiler, “We kind of came out flat and weren’t really playing our kind of soccer. It was kind of a wake-up call for us. Princeton was obviously eager to get back and strike against us. We just had to get back and play our kind of soccer.”
The Blue and Gray began to dominate possession and was able to respond quickly in the form of a goal, thanks to senior forward Steve Neumann. Freshman forward Alex Muyl and sophomore forward Brandon Allen combined well to set the Hermann Trophy candidate up for the shot into the bottom corner of the Princeton net.
The Hoyas took the lead for the first time in the match thanks to a Brandon Allen free kick which took a deflection off the post, the goalkeeper, and then finally into the net.
Despite a number of Georgetown chances, Princeton found their way back into the game with a goal in the 76th minute, but ultimately wound up losing the game due to a late Georgetown goal scored by junior midfielder and unlikely sharpshooter Tyler Rudy.
“It was amazing. The last time I scored was my freshman year, on this field, against Princeton. It’s pretty interesting actually. It was like the exact same goal. It felt amazing, “said an ecstatic Rudy.
Even though the Hoyas didn’t start the game in the fashion they would have liked, the team views Sunday’s game as a largely positive experience.
“We needed a game like that… the only time this season we’ve been down was against Cal and we did not respond well,” said Wiese. The goal really affected how we played. The only other time we were down was in overtime, but we can’t do anything about that… I thought we did a much better job of handling that adversity. We went down a goal, but got it back quick which is nice to see.”
Georgetown will look to extend its excellent form on Homecoming Saturday against Creighton at 1 p.m. on Shaw Field.
