The No. 17 Georgetown men’s lacrosse team (0-1) fell in its 2016 debut to No. 1 Notre Dame (1-0) 12-7 Saturday in Atlanta, Ga. in the Cobb County Classic. In the end, the Fighting Irish’s offense was too much for the Hoyas to handle.

“I thought we played hard, but as what happens in the beginning of the season [is that] you practice against yourself a lot, and some of the teams might do something that you’re not used to,” Head Coach Kevin Warne said.

Georgetown struggled throughout the game to win faceoffs, and the team’s inability to do so hurt it in the first quarter. Notre Dame won all five of the faceoffs in the first quarter and went on a 4-0 run to start the game. Georgetown went on to win only 22 percent of its attempts at the X.

Georgetown is still seeking the right player rotation and personnel changes to take the faceoff, but in the meantime, a team effort is the best approach to finding success at the X, according to Warne.

“[We must] remember that the faceoff game is a three-on-three game, it’s not so much a one-on-one game. So we’ve just got to make sure that we’re able to make it a three-on-three game a lot until we are more refined in our technique at the X,” Warne said.

In the second period, Georgetown’s freshmen displayed the offensive power of its recruiting class on attack. Freshman attack Daniel Bucaro finally got the Hoyas on the board when he scored at 12:26 of the second quarter for the first goal of his Georgetown career. Freshman attack Chris Donovan followed with his own first collegiate goal, making the game 5-2 with nine minutes left in the first half.

Warne spoke highly of the freshmen’s performances.

“I thought they were really good. I think they stayed within themselves, [and] they didn’t try to do too much — they just did their jobs. They’re pretty talented, and they were able to create their own shots,” Warne said.

The Hoyas opened up the second half strongly, scoring two goals in the first three minutes of the third quarter, including the first of junior midfielder Peter Conley’s two goals. Bucaro scored his second goal of the game at 12:41 of the third quarter, shrinking Notre Dame’s lead to 7-5. The Fighting Irish responded with two quick goals, both assisted by star senior attack Matt Kavanagh.

Notre Dame added three more goals in the fourth quarter while Georgetown only scored one. Bucaro assisted on sophomore attack Stephen Quinzi’s goal to add another point to his impressive debut.

Despite the five-goal loss, the Hoyas showed their capability to compete with the top team in the nation.

Warne praised the team’s effort, focus and determination.

“I thought that our guys competed hard for 60 minutes, and sometimes that’s tough if you go down a few goals, but I thought our guys kept fighting,” Warne said.

However, Warne said there are also several things the team needs to build on from its first performance in preparing for the games ahead.

“We’re going to worry about ourselves and what we need to do to be successful. I think at the end of the day you fall back on your training, and I think that if we understand what we need to do, how we need to run offense, how we need to play defense, how we need to clear the ball and ride, I think that will help us in the long run,” Warne said.

Georgetown’s next game is this Saturday when it travels to Maryland to play No. 14 Towson (2-0).