Charles Nailen/The Hoya The women’s lacrosse team faced little opposition against Richmond.

Thus far, no team has even been able to hang close to the Georgetown women’s lacrosse team. They are undefeated; they are untied. They look to continue that trend tomorrow against No. 4 Duke. Coming off wins over No. 18 Stanford and No. 8 Syracuse, their chances are high.

Thursday, the Hoyas faced the University of Richmond Spiders in a game originally scheduled for Friday, Feb. 28. The matchup was postponed until Wednesday because of the Blizzard of 2003. The rescheduling, however, put the game in the middle of two tough and important confrontations.

As usual, the Hoyas stepped up to all of the challenges, however. Over the break, Georgetown traveled to California to take on Stanford, overcoming The Cardinal 15-7. The team returned home to take on perennial powerhouse Syracuse. Again, the Hoyas overwhelmed the Orangewomen by a score of 13-3, despite facing what Head Coach Kim Simons called a lack of focus in practice.

“The Stanford game I was really impressed . we were out in California, and everyone was just excited to be sightseeing, but I was really pleased with the effort we put on the field as a whole team,” Simons said. “With Syracuse, we came back, we were a little out-of-sorts for a couple of days, and our practices weren’t great. But we got on track and obviously came out on game day.”

Georgetown hoped to continue the trend Wednesday. There were problems from the beginning for the Hoyas, however. Simons emphasized the role of the defense in the victory for Georgetown. Sophomore goaltender Sarah Robinson posted six saves on the day, while allowing only three goals.

“To hold a team to three goals against, two games in a row – that’s pretty impressive. I was pleased with our goalkeeping,” Simons said. “Offensively we had a pretty poor shooting day, our offense was a little bit out of sync. We shot around low 30 percent, which is not good for out team. We had some good chances where we didn’t finish.”

Despite the poor shooting, sophomore midfield Allison Chambers put up a career high 5 goals and added an assist to assure the Georgetown victory.

Senior attack Wick Stanwick opened the scoring for the Hoyas, netting two consecutive goals within the first five minutes of play. Chambers then took an assist from senior midfielder Liz Ryan for her first goal, putting the Hoyas up 3-0. Richmond tallied its first and only goal of the half before sophomore attack Sarah Oliphant found the net. Chambers would add another, along with and junior midfielder Michi Ellers before the half ended with Georgetown up 6-1

Overall, Georgetown outshot Richmond 28-13 in the win, while only putting nine shots in the net. The key for the Hoyas, however, is balance, as they have had at least six players with one or more points in all five of their games this season.

In second half action, Richmond scored early before a drought overtook the field. Both teams went scoreless for more than 15 minutes. Finally, Chambers chalked one up for Georgetown at the 11:56 mark and it would be all Chambers, all the way home. She added another less than three minutes later.

The Spiders tallied their final goal of the game with just under six minutes left on the clock. Chambers added her final goal of the afternoon with just 10 ticks left to give Georgetown the 9-3 win.

The Hoyas next face a tenacious Blue Devil team tomorrow on Kehoe Field at noon. Duke is 7-1 and ranked fourth coming off an 8-4 victory over No. 6 Princeton. The key to continuing the streak of victories for Georgetown is offensive output, combined with the balance they have shown all season.

“They play a very controlled, possession-oriented game, and we want to have the ball. We need to make sure we’re focused on what we need to do on both ends of the field, and controlling the tempo for all 60 minutes will be key.”

Against Richmond, the Hoyas gathered only seven draws for themselves and let seven go. Georgetown will face a difficult road if it produces a similar performance against Duke.

The teams last met last season in the NCAA Tournament quarterfinal round. Georgetown won the meeting 11-4, but the series still stands at 4-4 all-time. With five victories under its belt this season, however, Simons has good reason to be confident in her team.

“I can’t imagine, on Saturday, when we walk out onto our field and it’s a home game and it’s a nice day, that our girls won’t be ready to play.”