Under the eyes of more than 3,200 onlookers – the largest crowd to ever watch a lacrosse game at the Multi-Sport Facility – Georgetown senior defender Jerry Lambe stepped up his game.

After three quarters of play, Lambe held Duke senior attacker att Danowski, the most dangerous offensive player in the country, to just one assist. Danowski, who entered Saturday’s game with 20 goals and 10 assists for the season, couldn’t find any breathing room: Lambe matched him step for step, move for move.

But with 11:28 remaining and the game tied 4-4, Danowski broke free. He took a pass from junior midfielder Brad Ross on the left side of the field and rifled a low shot past Georgetown junior goalkeeper Miles Kass. The goal proved to be the game-winner, as No. 5 Duke (6-2) went on to win 6-4.

“That’s the best lacrosse player in the country right there,” Georgetown Head Coach Dave Urick said of Danowski. “If you’d have told me going into the game that Danowski was going to be one and one, I would have told you our chances of winning the game would be pretty good.”

But No. 7 Georgetown (4-2) came up short while Duke goalkeeper Dan Loftus came up big. Loftus made a season-high 19 saves, holding the Hoyas to just one goal in the second half after they led 3-1 at the break.

“Their goalie made saves in the second half,” Georgetown junior attacker Brendan Cannon said. “We gave him maybe some easy ones, but then, when we put some good shots on him, he had the confidence to make the save, and he did.”

Kass made a few big saves of his own to keep the Hoyas in the game. At one point in the first quarter, he brought the crowd to its feet with three consecutive outstanding saves in the span of about 30 seconds. He recorded 12 saves in the contest against hard, accurate shooting by the Blue Devils.

Cannon said Kass “was consistent throughout the game,” despite five goals allowed in the second half.

Junior attacker Andrew Baird got Georgetown off to a good start with an unassisted score two minutes into the game, his team-leading 11th goal of the season. Four minutes later, sophomore midfielder Cullen Molinari put the Hoyas ahead 2-0 with another unassisted goal.

Duke sophomore midfielder Ned Crotty put the Blue Devils on the scoreboard early in the second quarter with his seventh goal of the season. Six minutes later, Georgetown junior attacker Trevor Casey fired a shot into the goal’s lower right corner. The ball deflected out, but the referee called it a goal. Baird came close to giving the Hoyas a 4-1 lead going into halftime, but his shot hit the right post.

The Blue Devils did not waste any time getting back into the game in the third quarter. Junior attacker Zack Greer made the score 3-2 on an assist from sophomore attacker Gibbs Fogarty after just 28 seconds in. Then, after Georgetown sophomore attacker Jake Samperton scored on an assist from Cannon with 10:36 remaining in the quarter, Duke scored four unanswered goals.

Urick said that Duke’s aggressive defense made if difficult for the Hoyas to move the ball down the field.

“They make you earn every foot of real estate,” he said. “They do a great job of pressuring you coming out of your own end and between the restraining lines, and we didn’t handle that pressure as well as we’d like to all the time.”

The Blue Devils’ pressure caused several turnovers in the second half, which shifted momentum in their favor.

“Turnovers in a game like this are key,” Urick said. “Every time you lose it like that, that’s one more chance that they have to score and one less chance that we have to score. And that came back to haunt us in a game like this.”

The Hoyas will next take on No. 4 Navy (8-0) on Saturday. The opening face-off is set for 1 p.m. at the Multi-Sport Facility.

“It’s important for us to take a hard long look at [the Duke game] and get ready to play Navy,” Urick said. “We’ve got a lot of big lacrosse games ahead of us. Hopefully this one makes us a little bit better.”