In the final week of the regular season, the Georgetown women’s lacrosse team (12-5, 8-1 Big East) split its matchups, losing first to No. 8 Loyola Maryland (14-3, 9-0 Patriot League) 13-9 on Wednesday before bouncing back with a 15-8 victory over Temple (9-8, 4-5 Big East) on Saturday. Over the two games, sophomore attacker Michaela Bruno scored eight goals, while sophomore midfielder Natalia Lynch added four assists and two goals for the Blue and Gray.
The first matchup was the makeup game of a contest that was snowed out on March 21. The Hoyas jumped out to a 4-1 lead over their ranked opponent, but the Greyhounds bounced back to lead 7-5 at halftime, in part due to an 18-14 advantage in shots and forcing a whopping 12 turnovers from Georgetown over the opening period.
Bruno caught fire to open the second half, scoring three goals to help Georgetown tie the game at 8. However, Loyola would finish the game on a 5-1 run to take an away win. The Greyhounds outshot the Hoyas 33-26 and took significantly better care of the ball, forcing 21 Georgetown turnovers while committing only 14 themselves.
Despite the defeat, Georgetown came back with a bang to crush Temple. After the Owls took an early 2-1 advantage, the Hoyas scored four unanswered and never looked back. They went into halftime with a 5-3 lead and opening the second with another five straight goals, rendering the remaining 20 minutes a formality. This time, Georgetown won the shots battle 38-28 and took better care of the ball, only committing 15 turnovers to Temple’s 17.
The Hoyas remained the No. 2 seed in the Big East Tournament due to No. 9 Florida’s (14-3, 9-0 Big East) 23-3 demolition of last place Butler (1-16, 0-9 Big East), and as such, will face the No. 3 seed Denver (11-5, 6-3 Big East), in the Big East semifinals on Thursday, May 3 at 7 p.m.
Earlier this season, the Hoyas went to Denver and won 8-7 behind hat tricks from Bruno and junior attacker Taylor Gebhardt. The winner will face the victor of Florida and No. 4 seed Marquette (10-7, 6-3 Big East) in the championship game on May 5 at noon. For coverage of the tournament and the other spring sports at Georgetown, follow @GUVoiceSports on Twitter.
