“They’re a team that really had their backs against the wall,” Georgetown Head Coach Dave Urick said. “It’s a fairly safe assumption that their only chance to get into the NCAA tournament was to get the automatic bid for the league, and their only way to do that was to win the game on Saturday.”

Georgetown (9-2, 5-0 ECAC) clinched at least a share of the ECAC title and jumped two spots to No. 4 in the national rankings with the victory. The Hoyas have now won five games in a row and seven of their last eight.

Junior attacker Brendan Cannon, the preseason ECAC offensive player of the year, scored two goals and tallied two assists in Saturday’s game at Garber Field. Freshman attacker Craig Dowd scored two goals in the fourth quarter on assists from Cannon to help the Hoyas hold off the Minutemen, who rallied from a 6-2 deficit.

“We had some opportunities maybe to get away from them, and that didn’t happen,” Urick said. “But when we needed to come through, we got two big extra-man goals in the fourth quarter.”

Junior attacker Andrew Baird said that Georgetown put together a solid performance against a talented UMass team.

“Overall we played well,” Baird said. “We made our share of mistakes but I wouldn’t say that we were upset with the way we played.”

Massachusetts led 2-1 after the first quarter, but the Georgetown offense came alive in the second period. Cannon scored twice, sophomore midfielder Cullen Molinari connected for a goal and Baird added his team-leading 17th score of the season to give the Hoyas a 5-2 lead going into halftime.

After senior midfielder Garrett Wilson scored on an assist from senior attacker Trevor Casey in the first minute of the third quarter, Massachusetts tallied four unanswered goals, tying the game at 6-6 with 7:33 remaining. Then Cannon found Dowd for the two goals that put the Hoyas ahead for good.

Baird said that winning three of the game’s final four face-offs helped Georgetown shut the door on Massachusetts.

“I think it really just came down to possessing the ball,” Baird said. “We won those face-offs so they didn’t have a chance to score. They scored with 45 seconds left to come within one, and then we won the next face-off so they weren’t able to get another shot off to tie the game.”

The win was Georgetown’s fourth one-goal victory this season. The Hoyas have won three games this year by just two goals.

Courtesy Christian Gomez/The Daily Collegian

Even though Georgetown continues to win by the slimmest of margins, Urick said that the Hoyas are improving.

“There’s no doubt that we’re moving in the right direction,” Urick said. “We can get away from teams if we shoot the ball a little better, and we can get away from teams if we clear the ball a little better at some key times. We just haven’t done those things.”

Georgetown will next take on a talented but inconsistent Rutgers team on Saturday. Rutgers (5-5) beat No. 13 Loyola 17-7 on April 7 but lost to No. 12 Syracuse 22-9 the following weekend.

“They can beat anybody if they play well,” Baird said.

Urick said that the Scarlet Knights’ offensive firepower makes them dangerous.

“Their first six offensive players are as good as anybody we’ve seen,” Urick said.

Saturday’s opening face-off is set for 1 p.m. at the ulti-Sport Facility.