The Georgetown men’s lacrosse team (0-2) took on No. 13 Towson University (3-0) this weekend in a DMV battle at Johnny Unitas Stadium in Towson, Md. The Tigers started off hot by scoring four goals in the opening quarter, which proved to be too much of a deficit for the Hoyas to overcome.

“I think when a team jumps out a little early you have to adjust. The big thing is that we need to settle in to make sure that we stop their runs, and when a team goes up high, you got to revert back to your training and what you do and kind of follow the game plan,” Head Coach Kevin Warne said.

The Hoyas settled in and erased part of a 6-1 deficit, going on a 3-0 run in the waning minutes of the second quarter. The run was led by freshman attack Daniel Bucaro, who had a career-high three goals in the contest. Throughout the run, Georgetown fared well on faceoffs, winning 45 percent of its tries that day. Sophomore faceoff specialist Riley Mann won a career-high 7-of-9 at the X and helped his team take momentum into halftime.

In a low-scoring third period, Georgetown’s defense played well, limiting Towson to only nine shots. Sophomore goalkeeper Nick Marrocco had 13 saves on the day and helped keep the score close at 7-5 in the final minute of the third period. But three Hoya penalties with one minute left in the period gave the Tigers an opportunity to capitalize on an uneven playing situation. Towson scored two goals on man-up opportunities and made the margin 9-5 with a little over 14 minutes left in the game.

“Obviously, when we have more penalties than them, they have more opportunities to score on man-up. You can’t let penalties or refs affect how you play the game, and I think we [have to] do a better job, both on our man-up and man-down units,” sophomore midfielder Peter Conley said.

Georgetown’s penalties ultimately stifled its comeback bid. The Hoyas went scoreless until the 1:41 mark, when Bucaro — assisted by Conley — scored his third goal of the contest. With only a few minutes left, freshman attack Chris Donovan put in the last goal of the game, but the Hoyas fell short to the Tigers 10-7.

Georgetown has now taken on two top-15 opponents — No. 1 Notre Dame (3-0) and Towson —— and will enter its first home game against Mount St. Mary’s University (1-2) seeking its first win. Despite the losses, Conley said that playing high-caliber competition has been rewarding.

“We knew Notre Dame and Towson were going to be really tough teams, good defenses. I think more than anything we’re just figuring out who we are, figuring out what we need to work on specifically, and we’re [going to] try to put together a complete game [against Mount St. Mary’s],” Conley said. “Against both those teams we felt like we didn’t leave it all out on the field. We could’ve played a lot better in both games and that’s encouraging. We’re a young team and it’s still February, early in the season, and we have a lot to improve on.”

Warne added that the team would focus on ensuring that it plays smarter and anticipates more to avoid costly penalties in this coming game against Mount St. Mary’s, the team’s home opener.

“[The] guys are excited to play at home here at Cooper Field. With the shiny new helmets and the home uniforms it’s a different feeling, so it’ll be good for the guys to be excited and we’ll be ready to go tomorrow.” Warne said.

The opening faceoff is scheduled for 3 p.m. March 1 at Cooper Field.