The No. 8 Georgetown men’s soccer team won its first postseason game of the year Tuesday afternoon at Shaw Field. The Hoyas (12-3-4, 6-2-1 Big East) overcame the Marquette Golden Eagles (8-6-4, 2-3-4 Big East) 2-1 in the first round of the Big East tournament with freshman midfielder Arun Basuljevic and senior midfielder Austin Martz both scoring in their second consecutive games. The victory over Marquette was Head Coach Brian Wiese’s 100th career win at Georgetown.

Neither team found a way to take control of a sloppy game in the first 45 minutes. Both sides struggled to string together passes at times and dangerous giveaways by Marquette redshirt senior goalkeeper Tyler Lyon and Georgetown sophomore defender Joshua Yaro forced their respective teams into emergency defending. The third-seeded Hoyas largely controlled possession in the first and last 10 minutes of the half, but the sixth-seeded Golden Eagles also had the ball for large stretches.

“I thought we started the game really well and then kind of hit the doldrums there in the middle of the first half. A lot of that is because Marquette is good … but it started feeling like it was a midweek afternoon game,” Wiese said.

The second half, however, belonged to Georgetown. It controlled the ball and the pace of play and created frequent high-quality chances. The sense of urgency and level of play that the Hoyas brought to the second 45 minutes made them seem like the definitively better team.

“At halftime Coach [Wiese] got into us and said ‘This is it. We need to win to go on,’” Basuljevic said. “The guys came out flying.”

The most eventful section of the half, the 60th to 65th minutes, included a flurry of three goals, all scored by Georgetown players. The opening tally came in the 60th, beginning when junior midfielder Melvin Snoh picked up an errant back pass by Marquette. Snoh took the ball up the right flank and then passed over the head of junior forward Brandon Allen, who had drawn the coverage of the lone Golden Eagles defender, right to a wide open Basuljevic. Lyon charged to close down the angle, but the freshman patiently took a touch and then shot to the right of the keeper, finding the back of the net.

“I think the important one was the first goal,” Wiese said. “I thought Melvin was absolutely brilliant on the first goal. He played a perfect ball across.”

Just two minutes later, Marquette also found space on the wing to cross into the box. This time, the cross missed its target, instead hitting junior defender Cole Seiler. Seiler tried to react in time to clear the ball, but instead it ricocheted backwards past senior goalkeeper and co-captain Tomas Gomez for an own goal in the 62nd minute.

Own goals have the potential to deflate a team and kill any momentum that it may have. Georgetown, however, responded well, and continued its up-tempo attack. In the 65th minute, a series of short passes starting on the left wing set up freshman midfielder Christopher Lema on the end line just outside the 18-yard box. He centered the ball just in front of goal where Martz could easily tap the pass in for his third goal of the season.

“Losing that own goal right after you score is that moment where you are saying ‘Who are we?’ The ability for our guys to turn around and get the game winner in a few minutes is a great sign for a potential postseason run,” Wiese said.

Marquette attempted to level the game by pushing players forward, including the 6-foot-7-inch redshirt junior defender Axel Sjoberg, who looked to use his height to head in the equalizer. The Golden Eagles, however, could not hold onto the ball long enough to create many opportunities to score. The Hoyas, meanwhile, were able to take advantage of space left by the defense and nearly scored again several times. The Georgetown defense held and the game ended at 2-1.

Nine Georgetown players earned spots on all-Big East teams, which were announced at halftime. Allen and Yaro were selected to the all-Big East first team. Gomez, senior midfielder and co-captain Tyler Rudy, junior defender and co-captain Keegan Rosenberry and sophomore midfielder Alex Muyl, who missed the match due to illness, made Lema earned spots on the freshman team. Yaro earned defensive player of the year honors, and Basuljevic was named the conference rookie of the year.

“I am really happy. Me and my parents had joked about it back in the summer,” Basuljevic said. “I had no idea, actually, that I had got [rookie of the year] until [Snoh] told me today … I really could not have done it without these guys.”

Georgetown will play at 18,500-seat PPL Park in Philadelphia on Friday in the conference semifinals. The Hoyas will match up with second-seeded No. 11 Xavier (12-4-2, 6-1-2 Big East). The Hoyas defeated the Musketeers 1-0 in overtime on Oct. 29, with Allen scoring the game-winner from the penalty spot. Kickoff is set for 8:30 p.m. at the home of Major League Soccer’s Philadelphia Union.

If the Hoyas make it past the Musketeers, they will face the winner of the match between fourth-seeded No. 23 Providence (11-4-2, 5-2-2 Big East) and top seed No. 5 Creighton (14-2-2, 7-1-1 Big East). The conference championship match will take play at PPL Park on Sunday at 5 p.m.