Dan Gelfand/The Hoya Freshman attack Dave Paolisso competes against Navy on March 30.

With each passing game, Georgetown senior midfielder/attack Steve Dusseau continues to cement his place among the all-time greats in the history of the Georgetown men’s lacrosse program. After scoring 13 goals in his last three games, he came up with a career-high nine goals to lead the No. 5 Hoyas to a 13-7 victory over Bucknell.

Georgetown improved to 7-0 on the season, the best start in school history. Bucknell fell to 3-6.

“I’m shooting better now than I was in the beginning of the season,” Dusseau said. “It’s something I try to work on everyday in practice.”

Dusseau’s nine goals give him 30 thus far on the season. With six regular season games left to play, he sits in good position to break Assistant Coach Scott Urick’s (COL ’00) single season scoring record of 47 goals in the 1999 season. Dusseau currently leads the nation in points per game with an average of 5.29.

After playing midfield for the majority of his first three seasons, Dusseau has seen increasing time at the attack position this year. Against the Bison Wednesday, he was used almost exclusively at attack and played nearly the entire game.

“It’s important to have Dusseau mostly at attack,” Head Coach Dave Urick said. “When he’s at middie, we tend to run his unit into the ground.”

Other than Dusseau’s heroics, the game followed a typical pattern for the Hoyas this year. Georgetown jumped out to a 6-2 lead in the first half before allowing the Bison to creep back into the game during the second and third quarters. When Bucknell junior midfielder Rob Lane scored his second goal of the game with 11:24 remaining in the third quarter, the Georgetown lead was cut to 6-5.

But like they have done all year, Georgetown used its superior depth to wear down the Bison and end any chances of a huge upset. After outshooting the Bison only 18-17 in the first half, Georgetown doubled up Bucknell in the second half, outshooting them 26-13 for a 44-30 overall advantage in shots on the day.

“We didn’t have our `A’ game all the time,” Urick said. “But we had it when we needed it.”

Over the next 14 minutes, Georgetown would score six unanswered goals to put Bucknell away. Dusseau opened the Hoya run with just over six minutes remaining in the third with his sixth goal of the game. Less than two minutes later, sophomore midfielder Mike Boynton shoveled a shot past Bucknell junior goalkeeper Justin Sussman to increase the Hoya lead to three. Dusseau would score again seconds later to give the Hoyas a 9-5 advantage entering the games final quarter.

Bucknell’s attempts to physically intimidate Dusseau in the fourth quarter were to no avail. “I’ve been getting knocked around all year,” Dusseau said. He scored his eighth and ninth goals in the opening minutes of the quarter. Senior midfielder Phil Vincenti and sophomore midfielder Walid Hajj each scored in the final minutes to round out the scoring for the Hoyas.

While Dusseau provided most of the scoring punch for Georgetown Wednesday, five different Hoyas contributed assists. Sophomore attack Neal Goldman dished out two assists while senior attack Doug Staab, junior attack Mike Hammer, junior midfielder Trevor Walker and junior attack Jordan Vettoretti all added one. Junior long stick midfielder Kyle Sweeney picked up six ground balls to help Georgetown to a 48-36 overall advantage in that category.

On the defensive end, senior goalie Scott Schroeder posted another strong showing with 12 saves. His 65.2 save percentage going into Wednesday’s game was third in the nation.

Georgetown’s defense also benefited from the return of junior defenseman Pat Collins, who missed three games earlier in the year with a broken hand. Collins was charged with shadowing the Bison’s leading scorer, junior attack Dennis Geraghty. Geraghty scored three times, but two of those goals came late in the fourth quarter with the Hoyas nursing a large lead.

“Pat’s a warrior. He wanted to go play three weeks ago,” Urick said. “He did some nice things on the field which allowed us to rest some guys.”

The Hoyas return to action tomorrow when they play host to the No. 20 Brown Bears.

“Brown’s a good addition to our schedule,” Urick said. “It’s the kind of team we should be playing.”

The Bears enter the game 3-5, but that record could be misleading, as they have already matched up well with several of the nation’s best. Earlier in the year they fell only 8-6 to No. 3 Loyola, and last Saturday they took No. 2 Syracuse, the defending national champion, to overtime before falling 14-13.

“It’s a battle week in and week out,” Dusseau said. “We’re starting to come together, and I hope we can keep winning.”

Face-off against Brown is set for 1 p.m. at Harbin Field.