On Sunday afternoon, the No. 10 Georgetown women’s soccer (10-2-2, 4-0-1 Big East) came back from a 2-0 deficit to earn a 2-2 draw against the Creighton Bluejays (7-5-2, 1-2-2 Big East). Creighton grabbed the first-half lead off of two stunning strikes from senior forward Ashleigh Cearlock and sophomore midfielder Ansley Atkinson. Freshman midfielder Julia Leas got one back for the Hoyas midway through the second half, and Leas’ strike was quickly followed up by freshman forward Sofie Fox, who scored her first career goal.
The first half was fairly even, but Creighton took their chances superbly. In the 18th minute, Cearlock picked up the ball about 24 yards from goal and smashed it with the outside of her boot, whipping it around a Georgetown defender and into the left corner.
With five minutes left to play in the half, freshman forward Skylar Heinrich led a counterattack off of a Hoya turnover and earned a freekick just outside the box. Atkinson stepped up and bent the free-kick into the top left corner, extending Creighton’s lead to two.
Head coach Dave Nolan spoke a bit about Heinrich after the game: “[Heinrich] is a very good player, she had us on our toes the whole game as a freshman. It’s great for the conference that we’ve got a quality player like that in the Big East.”
The Hoyas came out with a purpose in the second half. They put 13 shots on the board and were rewarded twice for their efforts. The breakthrough came in the 64th minute when Leas fought for position and got her head on the end of a corner in the six yard box.
Photo by John Picker The Hoyas celebrate the Leas goal that got them back into the game.Photo by John Picker
Nine minutes later, graduate forward Amanda Carolan beat her defender on the right side of the box and crossed a ball that fell to Fox, which she calmly finished. Regulation ended at 2-2, which meant the game was headed to overtime.
“At that point then I felt like we were the team more likely to win it,” said Nolan. “We got plenty of half opportunities. They had a couple of counter-attacks as we tried to go and win the game.”
Creighton’s best chance of overtime came from another counterattack led by Heinrich. Anna Leat, however, came up big, closing off the angle and stuffing Heinrich’s shot. Outside of that counterattack, the Hoyas dominated both overtime periods but were unable to convert their chances.
Carolan chases down a ball in overtime.
Nolan summarized his thoughts about the result: “I am disappointed with the result, but I am not really disappointed with the performance, because I thought we played okay. I thought this was a much better effort than our effort against Xavier the other day. I thought the kids went for it today.
The Hoyas now go on the road to face Butler next Sunday and DePaul the following Thursday. Traditionally, Butler has been Georgetown’s biggest Big East rival. The two sides have faced off in both of the last two Big East Championships, with Georgetown getting the better of Butler both times.
The game is set for 1:00 p.m. ET on Sunday, October 21st. Live stats and a stream are available at guhoyas.com. Follow @GUVoiceSports on Twitter for updates and game recaps throughout the women’s soccer season, as well as coverage of the rest of the school sports throughout the year.
