Dan Gelfand/The Hoya Junior third baseman Jim Supple scores a run during Georgetown’s 9-6 loss to Notre Dame on Sunday.

A three-game sweep by a conference opponent is never easy to swallow, but the Georgetown baseball team could take several positives away from last weekend’s losses to No. 4 Notre Dame.

The vaunted Irish cemented their role as one of the country’s best teams by beating the Hoyas in front of near-capacity crowds at Shirley Povich Field, winning 18-7, 11-4 and 9-6.

Georgetown’s record fell to 20-23, including 5-11 in Big East play. Notre Dame improved to 30-5 and remains in a tie for first with an 11-2 conference mark.

Although the Irish outscored the Hoyas 38-17, Georgetown led in all three contests and came within seven outs of beating Notre Dame in the final game.

“We battled our butts off,” Head Coach Pete Wilk said. “They’re a damn good club and there’s a reason they’re ranked high.”

Georgetown led Saturday’s seven-inning opener 7-4 heading into the top of the fifth inning. But Notre Dame scored seven times in the frame and never looked back.

The Irish scored four runs in the top of the second, but the Hoyas got a run back in the bottom of the inning when sophomore shortstop Matt Johnson singled to score senior catcher Mike Lombardi.

Georgetown used a big third inning to move ahead. Junior catcher Andrew Cleary hit a bases-loaded single to plate a pair of runners. Three batters later, Johnson came up with the bases full and also laced a two-run single, putting the Hoyas ahead, 5-4.

Junior designated hitter Billy Quinn added an RBI double in the fourth, and came home on a single by Lombardi to give Georgetown its biggest lead.

But the wheels came off in the fifth. The Irish scored seven runs, four of which were unearned, as junior starter Eddie Pena was unable to get out of the inning.

Already leading 11-7, the Irish broke the game open with a six-run sixth. Freshman Mark Dutmers struck out the second batter after allowing a leadoff double, but the next seven batters all reached safely, with Hoya pitchers walking four consecutive batters at one point. Notre Dame added another run in the seventh, and coasted to an 18-7 win. Georgetown quickly recovered in the second game, as Quinn gave the Hoyas an early lead with a two-run homer in the first.

Notre Dame scored three runs in the third off of freshman Erick Chandler, but Cleary’s RBI double in the bottom of the inning tied the game, 3-3.

As they had done in the first game, the Irish moved ahead with a big inning. Wilk pulled Chandler in the fourth after he had given up five runs (three earned) to give Notre Dame an 8-3 lead. Junior ichael Halloran pitched the final 5 1/3 innings, holding Notre Dame to just three runs on seven hits, but the Irish held on for the victory.

After staying close with the Irish in the early going of both games Saturday, the Hoyas no doubt felt confident that they could steal the final game. The prospects for a Georgetown victory seemed slim in the first inning, when Notre Dame opened with three straight hits off of sophomore Stephen Burns en route to taking a 3-0 lead.

The Hoyas battled back in the third, however. Junior first basemen Jim Supple drew a leadoff walk, and advanced to second on a groundout by Johnson. Sophomore third baseman Danny Gronski singled up the middle to score Supple, and he later came home on a double by senior left fielder Ron Cano. Quinn followed with a hard single to right field, and Cano slid under the tag at home to tie the game.

Notre Dame scored a run in the top of the fourth, but the lead shifted again in the bottom of the inning when Gronski hit a two-run home run to put Georgetown ahead, 5-4.

Georgetown’s runs came at the expense of two pitchers, junior Grant Johnson and freshman Jeff Samardzija, who entered the game with earned run averages of 0.56 and 0.33, respectively.

The lead held going into the top of the seventh. Burns struck out the first batter of the inning but walked the next two. He gave way to junior Thomas Braun, who hit the first batter he faced to load the bases. After inducing a fly out to right, Braun walked in a run to tie the game, 5-5.

That brought up Zack Sisko, a senior second basemen with only 25 at bats coming into the season. The walk-on ended up as the hero of the day, as he drove Braun’s 1-0 fastball over the wall in right-center for a grand slam, his first career home run.

“Home runs are exciting anyway, but in that scenario it was pretty unbelievable,” Sisko said. “I couldn’t have drawn it up. I was just trying to hit a line drive up the middle and it just happened to go out.”

The blast put Notre Dame ahead, 9-5. Georgetown cut the lead to three in the bottom of the inning, and then loaded the bases with two out in the eighth. Cano hit a ball sharply, but it was snared by the first baseman to end the threat. The Hoyas went down in order in the ninth as the Irish held on for the sweep.

Despite the losses, Georgetown did many things well in the series. The starting pitching held up against the prodigious Notre Dame offense for the most part, and the Hoyas’ offense scored 17 runs against a pitching staff with an ERA of 3.66.

“We just competed against one of the best programs in the country,” Wilk said. “That should show our kids we can play with anybody in the country. If we don’t see that, we’re blind.”

Coppin State visits Shirley Povich Field today at 7 p.m., and the Hoyas will play host to Mount St. Mary’s on Thursday, also at 7 p.m.