After poor showings in Boston a week earlier, the No. 3 Georgetown women’s lacrosse team fought through distractions to take a 14-6 win over Notre Dame on Saturday.

In the backfield, superior goaltending from senior Sarah Robinson and sophomore Maggie Koch anchored the team’s performance. At the other end of the field, the team’s three leading scorers combined for 10 goals and five assists. Senior attack Catherine Elbe led scoring with four while midfielder Allison Chambers added three.

Just days after being nominated for the prestigious Tewaaraton Trophy, sophomore attack Coco Stanwick improved her statistics, adding three goals and two assists, bringing her totals to 37 and 16, respectively. Erin Elbe (COL ’02) is the only Hoya to win the sport’s highest honor while Stanwick’s elder sister, Wick (MSB ’03), was nominated in her senior year.

“She deserves the recognition that she’s getting,” Georgetown Head Coach Ricky Fried said of the nomination. “But a lot of it has to do with her teammates as well. To be a sophomore on that list is a huge honor for her, but there’s a long way to go in the season. It’s kind of in the back of everybody’s mind.”

Closer to the front of the minds of the Georgetown team (9-3, 4-0 Big East) was a conspicuous absence on their starting lineup against Notre Dame (3-9, 1-3 Big East). Senior midfielder Lauryn Bernier, the team’s fifth leading scorer with 12 goals on the season, injured her back in practice last week. Bernier is listed as day to day.

“She’s had a chronic back issue at least the past two years. During practice she tweaked it,” Fried said, adding, “Tweaked is probably an understatement – she basically threw it out.”

The Hoyas traveled to Indiana without Bernier, but Fried said he felt his team responded to her absence.

In the early going, Georgetown again found itself on its heels. The Irish came out fighting, forcing Robinson to make five of her eight saves in the first three minutes. Notre Dame junior defender Lena Zentgraf gave her team a 1-0 lead 10 minutes in, but the Hoyas responded.

“We came out with a sense of urgency. We knew we needed to show up and play hard. We were a little shaky the first five minutes clearing the ball and handling the ball, but after that we settled in and played to our potential, which is a nice thing for a change,” Fried said.

Elbe scored all four of her goals in the first half while Stanwick and Chambers added one apiece. Senior attack Hollis Pica and sophomore Brittany Baschuk added goals, and the Hoyas took an 8-1 lead into the break.

Koch took the net for the Hoyas in the second half with her team already in a strong position.

“Maggie had gotten some time, but she was being thrown into positions where it was pretty stressful – we needed saves, or they were up or they were coming back on a run and it was a spur of the moment decision,” Fried said of Koch. “We decided during this week that we would play two goalies, one each half. It allowed Maggie to have more of a mental focus – knowing when she’s going in, understanding that regardless of the situation she is going in. It helped her to settle down and play to her potential.”

Koch let two goals by in the first five minutes, but settled into her net and collected nine saves. The Hoyas built a 12-3 lead on goals from Chambers, Stanwick and senior mid Lauren Redler. The Irish cut the score to 12-6, but the Hoya defense shut down the Irish for the final 15 minutes.

Fried said he was pleased with the defensive performance and will continue showing playing time to both goaltenders. “We had 21 saves – we’re going to win a lot of games like that,” he said. “We’ll be splitting time in goal, moving forward that way till it doesn’t work.”

The Hoyas hope to put out a similar performance Wednesday night when they take on defending National Champion University of Virginia. Virginia defeated the Hoyas with a hard-fought 9-12 final in last season’s NCAA semifinals.

“It’s going to be the same type of game. They’re a very strong team, very athletic. They’re going to come out hard, play hard. They lost a few players; we lost a few players. We’re going to go out and play and see how we do,” Fried said.

The Hoyas take on the Cavaliers in their final road game of the season. Opening draw is Wednesday at 7 p.m.

“One of the biggest factors is that we improved last week to this week, and that’s got to be our goal,” Fried said.