On Thursday night No. 16 Georgetown (8-7, 6-1 Big East) suffered a tough loss to No. 1 Maryland (18-0, 5-0 ACC) in a low-scoring match-up of two highly skilled teams. The Hoyas had a number of offensive possessions but were not able to capitalize on scoring opportunities and eventually fell to the Terps, 8-5.

Last Tuesday, Georgetown downed No. 6 Loyola and handed the Greyhounds their first loss of the season, tarnishing their perfect conference record. With a 15-13 victory, the Hoyas clinched a berth in the Big East tournament while remaining undefeated in conference play. It was also the first time Georgetown had defeated a top-ten opponent since last year’s 10-8 victory over No. 9 Syracuse to capture the Big East regular season title.

“I think the biggest thing against Loyola was execution on our part, and I think we played with a really high purpose,” Head Coach Ricky Fried said. “We played with a lot of energy, and we played together. Those three things were really key to our win against a team like that.”

On Saturday, Notre Dame handed Georgetown its first Big East loss to snap the Hoyas’ six-game winning streak. The Blue and Gray fell behind by seven goals in the second half before staging a 5-0 run to pull within two, but the Irish managed three crucial saves in the final minutes to capture the victory, 13-10.

“I think Notre Dame just played with more purpose than we did for the first 25 or 30 minutes of the game,” Fried said. “When we did kick it into gear, we had a valiant effort coming back, but we dug ourselves too deep of a hole and they are just too good of a team to do that against.”

On Thursday, Maryland opened the scoring on a free position shot seven minutes into the first half. Senior attack Sarah Mollison added another tally for the Terps just 25 seconds later before scoring again at 15:08 to pull ahead 3-0.

Sophomore attack Dina Jackson connected with senior attack and captain Jordy Kirr at the 10-minute mark for the Hoyas’ first goal of the game, but Maryland midfielder Katie Schwarzmann was able to notch one more in the final three minutes to make it 4-1 at the break.

Schwarzmann tallied her second goal of the game to open the second half, but the Blue and Gray capitalized on a free-position shot from senior attack Kathleen Dwyer to make it 5-2. Georgetown was unable to string consecutive goals together, however, and back-to-back goals from Mollison and Schwarzmann gave the Terps their biggest lead of the game.

Another free-position goal from senior attack Jacqueline Giles at 9:16 cut into the Terrapins’ lead, and senior midfielder Mary Beth Brophy followed Giles’ goal up with her only goal of the game just a minute later. Maryland responded with its final goal of the game at the one-minute mark.

A goal from sophomore midfielder Kelsi Bozel with just 20 seconds left was not enough for the Hoyas, as Terps finished the 8-5 win without conceding another goal.

Georgetown outshot Maryland 20-13, but could not capitalize on many of those shot opportunities.

“Shooting was definitely our biggest weakness today,” Fried said. “We stuck to our game plan really well, and we even got the shots that we wanted to get. But we just didn’t shoot particularly well when we had those opportunities. That made it really hard to come back against a strong team like Maryland.”

Georgetown will travel to Rutgers on Sunday for its final conference game of the season. The Hoyas hope to capture the Big East regular season title for the second consecutive year. The draw is scheduled for 1 p.m. in Piscataway, N.J.