The Georgetown men’s lacrosse team (0-2, 0-0 Big East) suffered a 9-6 loss to the Towson Tigers (2-1, 0-0 CAA) in their home opener. The Hoyas fell behind early in the game, and despite mounting a small comeback in the second half, never looked to threaten their opponents’ lead.
“You can’t put yourself in a hole. It’s college lacrosse,” said Georgetown Head Coach Kevin Warne. The Hofstra graduate watched as his team fell apart early on, losing five of the game’s first seven face-offs and giving up six goals.
“I’m not sure we did what we needed to do,” Warne said. “Those guys are pretty talented and they made us pay for it. They were tough on the ground. Typical Towson team. Blue collar. Tough guys. They picked up a lot of stuff off the carpet to give themselves those second chances. They shot really well.”
Freshman goalie Nick Marrocco endured a torrid first half as the Tigers’ attack stretched the Hoya defense to its limits. Towson midfielders Andrew Hodgson and Mike Lynch were the main catalysts behind their team’s offensive production. Despite the early deluge of goals, Warne refused to place the majority of the blame on his inexperienced goalie.
“The goalie has the toughest position in the world because everyone notices when he messes up. That’s something we focused on all week. We tried to get Towson to play to their weak hand. When those guys get their hands free and their feet set, it goes.”
Towson heaped more misery on Georgetown by adding a seventh goal with 12:37 left to play in the second quarter. It wasn’t until the 10th minute of the same quarter that the Hoyas finally made it onto the board. Freshman midfielder Craig Berge gave the Hoyas a small glimmer of hope before another Tigers’ goal brought the score to 8-1 going into the half.
As the third quarter opened, senior attack Bo Stafford added another seemingly meaningless goal to the Hoyas’ meager haul. The final Towson goal of the game came with 10:09 to play in the second quarter as junior attack Spencer Parks buried a shot in the Hoya cage to make the score 9-2.
This point in the game signalled a shift in the attitude of Warne’s charges. They began to play a cagey game, making Towson work for their possession, instead of giving it away.
“I probably can’t tell you what I said [during halftime],” said Warne. “Just that that wasn’t the team I know.”
Georgetown embarked on an unprecedented scoring run that saw freshman attack Matt Behrens, junior midfielder Corey Parke, freshman attack Stephen Quinzi, and sophomore midfielder Devon Lewis bring the score of the game to 9-6.
While the Hoyas’ final scoring run was impressive, it fell short of the mark set by Towson. While it didn’t win them the game, it did demonstrate that the Hoyas are capable of far more than they showed during the first half. Warne wasn’t surprised by what he saw in the latter half of the game, but thinks he needs to see it a lot more if the Hoyas want their season to be a success.
“I think the big thing for us right now is consistency,” Warne said. “We have to be more consistent. This is two games in a row now we’ve come out weak in the first quarter. We were down 4-1 last week and 6-0 this week. We’ll figure that out this week.”
The Hoyas are back in action at home next Saturday as they take on Hofstra at noon.
