Eden Ghidei/The Hoya Senior midfielder Carl Skanderup fights for a shot at the ball while Pittsburgh defender pulls him away. The Hoyas grew increasingly frustrated at their lack of offense in the 2-1 double-OT loss.

Georgetown’s men’s soccer team managed to overcome the inconsistency that has plagued its play this season in order to beat Villanova 2-0 last Wednesday in Pennsylvania, keeping the team’s postseason chances alive. Unfortunately, this confidence-boosting win could not take place before the University of Pittsburgh slipped past Georgetown 2-1 and the end of second overtime at North Kehoe Field last Saturday.

The win and the loss, against the ninth and 11th place teams in the Big East respectively, leaves the Hoyas in a precarious position in the tenth spot in the conference with three games left in conference play. With two of those games against Seton Hall and Connecticut, two of the conference’s stronger programs, Georgetown has an uphill climb to make it to the postseason.

“We’re playing good soccer again, but not well enough as we need to,” senior goalkeeper Tim Hogan said.

On a typically warm and sunny soccer Saturday, the largest crowd this year assembled to watch the home team battle the Pittsburgh Panthers, traditionally not one of the strongest teams in the conference, but one with a developing squad of underclassmen. While the spirit of Homecoming buoyed Georgetown for the first few minutes, leading to a quick goal, the team still remained vulnerable, allowing Pittsburgh chances to sneak back into the game.

The Hoyas opened up the scoring with a goal from freshman forward Ricky Schramm, who had been relatively quiet around the goal since netting a number of goals very early in the season. Schramm knocked the ball in after freshman midfielder Daniel Grasso set him up with a corner kick in the eighth minute.

“I’m starting to get my confidence back, and I’m happy to break out a score again,” Schramm said.

Pittsburgh refused to lie down after the goal, and sophomore forward Keeyan Young stormed past a relatively complacent Georgetown defense to even the score at one goal apiece.

Georgetown held the advantage for most of the game and continually searched for the goal that would put away its rival. Despite several chances throughout both periods, this break never came for the home team. Several attackers came up with promising shots, only to have the ball deflected by Panther sophomore goalkeeper Justin Lowery. As regulation time drew to a close, Georgetown became more desperate, but the team could not connect and the ball just would not go into the goal.

“We were doing everything we needed to do, but the ball wasn’t rolling our way on that last pass and a lot of times its got broken up,” Schramm said.

Instead, the Hoyas were forced into overtime, their first since vanquishing Virginia Tech 2-1 in the first overtime back in the last week of September. While the stats remained fairly equal throughout the ninety minutes of regulation, with the Hoyas garnering 14 shots to the Panthers’ 16, the home team still had better chances to put away a goal.

Neither team dominated overtime, but Georgetown still appeared to control the game. After 10 minutes, neither team scored, despite the heavy prompting from an increasingly active Georgetown crowd. The Hoyas looked increasingly dejected about not producing the game winner, and this carried into the second overtime period.

For the first eight minutes both teams came up with opportunities without success. It was not until, with less than two minutes before a tied could be declared, Young broke away once again. While the defender raced to catch up with the streaking forward, Young stayed a step ahead. In the one-on-one with Hogan, Pittsburgh’s top attacker outmaneuvered his opponent, netting the golden goal. As the Panthers dashed around their bench in celebration of their stroke of luck, the Hoyas looked anything but happy knowing that they had let another conference win slip away.

“If you play anyone average in the Big East, they’re going to beat you,” Hogan said.

The team made sure that their contest with Villanova would not proceed in similar fashion. On an extremely blustery day that played havoc with the ball, 180 souls sat around in the stands of the Villanova Soccer Complex in the school’s suburban Philadelphia campus.

“The wind had a tremendous effect; the ball was going all over the field. I think that both teams dealt with it pretty well, but it was a very hard wind coming across the field,” head coach Keith Tabatznik said.

At first, the spectators watched Villanvoa get out to a strong start. Within four minutes, Wildcat junior midfielder Jonathan Lopuski had launched the ball from outside the box, but Hogan was able to get a hand on it and force the shot out of bounds.

“I don’t think the stats show how well we played throughout the entire game, even from the beginning,” Tabatznik said.

The Hoyas stood firm, however, and soon the Wildcats momentum had dissipated, opening the game up for the visiting team to make its mark. After 24:23 had passed in the game, junior midfielder Trevor Goodrich sent a cross from the right corner to junior defender Dan Gargan in the box. Gargan booted the ball past Villanova sophomore goalkeeper Craig Bald for the first goal of the game.

When the first half expired, the Wildcats had outshot the Hoyas 8-4, but trailed their opponents 1-0. This time, it was Georgetown that made the most of the few opportunities it had to steal the lead.

The second half progressed similarly, with both teams working the field looking for chances but failing to convert. While Georgetown worked hard to keep its adversary out of its territory, it also could not come up with another goal despite increased field coverage and better playing around Villanova’s goal. The Wildcats nearly found the tying goal with 10 minutes left when the officials awarded the team a penalty kick just outside the box, but Hogan eventually was able to stop the ball and preserve the lead.

“We were more dangerous in this game in the final third of the field. Whenever we got the ball in the final third of the field, it looked like something would come of it,” Tabatznik said. “We also had a focus and a good defensive organization.”

While Villanova moved its players up into enemy territory in the final minutes of the game, Georgetown took advantage of the weaker defense in order to seal its victory with a second goal. Schramm provided an assist to fellow freshman forward Danny McAnally, who sunk the ball into the right corner of the goal with two minutes and 12 seconds left to play. When the final buzzer rang, the Hoyas trotted off the field their first win since a 4-0 victory over VMI on Oct. 1.

The win props up the team’s record to 5-7-2 for the season and 2-5-0 in the Big East. Villanova is enjoying a relatively strong season with a 7-6-1 record, but has struggled in the conference with a 2-5-0 mark. Both teams sit below eighth place, the last spot to qualify for the Big East postseason tournament, and along with Pittsburgh, both teams have six points in the conference standings.

Next up for Georgetown is Syracuse, a team which has posted ties against Notre Dame and Rutgers despite sitting at the bottom of the conference standings. Inconsistency and close losses have hobbled the Hoyas this season and the team will need to shake this habit if it wants to continue playing into November.

“I don’t think that it matters to this team right now who we’re playing,” Tabatznik said. “We don’t have time to think about that stuff. We have to play better and better soccer ourselves.”