Corners are golden opportunities in field hockey. They can make any team’s day, and giving them up can break any team’s game. No. 16 James Madison gave Georgetown a lesson in their importance Sunday, capitalizing on frequent corner opportunities as they devoured the Hoyas in a 4-0 decision .

Visiting Kehoe Field, the Dukes (9-6, 3-1 CAA) earned their seventh shutout of the year as they garnered 11 corners and held Georgetown (3-9) to zero.

“They’re good. They know how to get corners,” Georgetown senior defender Caitlin Bump said, “and that’s the game of field hockey.”

Although the Dukes outshot the Hoyas 8-0 in the first half, Georgetown showcased a tough defensive front, including a team save when the Dukes had an open goal. The Hoyas prevented James Madison from scoring until the 35th minute. On their fifth corner of the half, junior midfielder Baillie Versfeld scored off an assist from freshman midfielder Ashley Walls, hitting the net at the end of the first half to light up the scoreboard as time elapsed.

“It looked like Georgetown really wanted to defend their goal,” James Madison Head Coach Antoinette Lucas said. “That gave us room to pass the ball around in the back.”

But before the teams could break for halftime, James Madison was awarded a penalty stroke because Bump had used her body, rather than her stick, to block the shot. Freshman midfielder Melissa Stefaniak slotted the ball in the top left corner of the goal to put the Dukes up 2-0.

The Hoyas played more aggressively in the second half, finally managing to push the ball into the Dukes’ territory after spending most of the first half defending.

“We came up with the ball a lot, but we didn’t have a lot of attacking opportunities,” Georgetown Head Coach Laurie Carroll said.

The surge of energy on the field came at a price, as it cost the Hoyas injuries and penalties. In the 38th minute, sophomore defender Lauren Sheets got the wind knocked out of her, stopping the clock since she was down on the field for so long. Sophomore forward Lindsay Fisher and sophomore midfielder Kristin Twomey also got hurt in the game. Carroll said that all three would be OK.

The Georgetown bench was issued a green card halfway through the second half, and about 10 minutes later a referee gave Sheets a yellow card for intentionally tripping Versfeld. The cautions and fouls added up for the Hoyas: Sophomore defender Annie Haffenreffer also got a green card in the first half, and Georgetown ended up totaling 57 fouls to James Madison’s 29.

Versfeld, the most powerful shooter on the field, scored her 11th goal of the season in the 57th minute thanks to another assist from Walls on a corner, making the score 3-0. The Dukes got off 11 shots in the second half while the Hoyas managed two.

The end of the game played out like a flashback of the final minute before halftime. James Madison earned another late corner, and although sophomore defender Lauren Staniak was unable to hit the goal this time, the Dukes received another penalty stroke – again, because Bump had blocked the ball with her body. This time, freshman midfielder Melissa Walls (the sister of Ashley Walls) scored to give James Madison its fourth and final goal of the game to complete a 4-0 shutout.

“I’d rather give up a stroke than a goal,” Bump said about the penalties, but both penalty strokes ended up yielding points.

“Maybe we deserve to lose 2-0,” Carroll said. “We were disappointed with our time management,” she later added.

Georgetown will next face Pennsylvania (6-6, 1-2 Ivy) Wednesday at 7 p.m. on the Quakers’ Franklin Field.