The Georgetown Hoyas men’s soccer team (12-5-3) opened their NCAA tournament run on a cloudless Wednesday afternoon, hosting the Navy Midshipmen (7-5-9) at Shaw Field. The Hoyas played a dominant game, defeating the Midshipmen 2-0 to advance to the second round of the NCAA men’s soccer tournament.
The Hoyas opened the game well, controlling possession from kickoff and consistently pressuring the Midshipmen defense. Senior defender Daniel Wu notched the Hoyas’ first shot on goal in the 2nd minute, a solid effort that was saved by Navy sophomore keeper Pierce Holbrook. The Hoyas opened on a strong offensive run — they had three corner-kicks and five shots in the first fifteen minutes of the game. But Navy’s defense held firm, and the game remained scoreless.
Georgetown’s offensive dominance continued. In the 30th minute, freshman forward Jack Panayotou fired a shot that ricocheted off of the crossbar. As the half wound down, the Hoyas tallied a final flurry of shots from sophomore forward Ronan Dillow, sophomore defender Kieran Sargeant, and junior midfielder Trevor Burns. Navy had its best chance of the half in the 43rd minute, a long shot from freshman forward A.J. Schuetz that Georgetown’s junior goalkeeper Ryan Schewe luckily managed to deflect over the top of the net. The Midshipmen were unable to capitalize on the ensuing corner kick, and the half ended with both teams scoreless. Overall, the Hoyas had a strong offensive half, tallying a total of eleven shots to only three by the Midshipmen. The Hoyas also performed well defensively, with goalkeeper Schewe only needing to make one save in the half — his late-half effort against Schuetz.
In the second half, Georgetown built its momentum, attacking on offense and consistently pressing into Navy’s backfield. The Hoyas kept probing the defense with a series of deep passes and crosses from outside the box, but were unable to finish until the 57th minute. Junior midfielder Kyle Linhares fired a cross from the right side of the field to junior defender Kenny Nielsen in the penalty box. Holbrook managed to deflect the shot from Nielsen, but freshman forward Jacob Murrell controlled the rebound and buried it in the left corner of the net to give Georgetown the 1-0 lead.
The Hoyas’ offense didn’t let up. Freshman midfielder Zach Zengue came in for Linhares in the 61st minute and notched three shots in the next ten minutes. Georgetown kept pushing and Navy’s offense was slow to respond. In the 70th minute, the Hoyas struck again. Zengue passed the ball into the box to an open Murrell, who beat the Midshipmen’s keeper to score his second goal of the day and put the Hoyas up 2-0.
Navy showed a little more energy offensively as the half wound down, pushing farther up the field and testing Georgetown’s defense with a series of deep runs. But the Hoyas held, and the final whistle sounded with Georgetown’s lead remaining intact. The final score was 2-0 in the Hoyas’ favor. Georgetown had a dominant game offensively, tallying a total of twenty-four shots and eight shots on goal compared to four shots and two on goal for Navy.
Georgetown Head Coach Brian Wiese said, “You have to give Navy a lot of credit since they were the champions of the Patriot League and they made it really hard.” Wiese continued, “keeping it at zero was really important. Finding a way to break through the defense was the key, they have seven ties on the year and we know they were really difficult to bring down so we were happy to get through that and advance.”
With the win, the Hoyas move onto the second round of the NCAA tournament, where they’ll face the University of Tulsa Golden Hurricane on Sunday. Tulsa, the 15th seeded team in the tournament, finished the season with a 9-4-2 overall record and placed fourth in the American Athletic Conference during the regular season. Kickoff is scheduled for 7 PM ET in Tulsa’s Hurricane Stadium. For continued coverage of men’s soccer and all Georgetown sports, follow @GUVoiceSports on Twitter.
