Outplayed at the faceoff, outworked on groundballs and stymied by a top-class goalie, No. 8 Georgetown (7-4) had no answers for No. 9 Loyola (Md.) (8-2) in the second half of Saturday’s matchup. Tied 4-4 at halftime, the Greyhounds took advantage of a four-goal run in the third quarter to race ahead to an 11-6 victory.
The loss drops the Hoyas to 0-4 against teams currently ranked in the top 10 and serves as a major blow to Georgetown’s NCAA tournament aspirations. With the season’s end approaching, the margin for error has become razor-thin.
“We’ll see. I think we’re still in the hunt,” Georgetown Head Coach Dave Urick said. “That’s got to be our approach. Our players need to understand that, they need to believe that, and we’ve got three games left.”
Loyola controlled the faceoffs all game, winning 15 of 20 draws on the afternoon and all five in the decisive third quarter. Junior Brian Tabb (55.1 percent for the season) struggled against Loyola’s John Schiavone, winning only four of 16 faceoffs, but Loyola’s decided faceoff advantage was very much the product of a collective effort.
“We were watching the tape this morning. Anytime there was a 50-50 groundball, whether it was in our defensive end or in our offensive end or on the faceoff, anytime there was a 50-50 groundball, we did not get it nearly as much as we should have,” Urick said Monday afternoon. “That’s something you can get better at, and we need to get better at. It’s not like we were losing the faceoff clean and getting dominated at the X.”
When the Blue and Gray did get possession, they failed to do much with the ball – Georgetown’s six goals was its lowest scoring output of the season. Urick gave much of the credit to Loyola goalie Jake Hagelin, who stopped 14 of 20 shots on goal.
“We had some opportunities,” Urick said “We had some good looks. He made some big saves. That, combined with the limited opportunities, really, it was the difference.”
The Hoyas failed to capitalize on four first-half, extra-man opportunities but nevertheless stayed even through the first half. Redshirt junior attack Rickey Mirabito scored his second goal of the game midway through the second quarter to tie it at three. Loyola regained the lead several minutes later before senior attack Craig Dowd notched his 10th goal of the season to knot it up at four goals apiece heading into halftime.
Despite picking up only 13 groundballs to Loyola’s 23, Georgetown remained level through two quarters, but after the intermission the Greyhounds began to take advantage of their superior possession, beginning with a violation on the Hoyas during the opening faceoff that set the tone for the rest of the half.
“We’re not playing all that well in the game as it is, but we’re still tied at halftime. So we’re right there,” Urick said. “It’s a 30-minute game and then coming out with the opening faceoff in the third quarter and we give it away and then we didn’t get any after that either, the rest of that quarter.”
A four-goal run between the 12 and 8.5 minute marks provided Loyola with what proved to be an insurmountable advantage. Freshman attack Travis Comeau’s 20th tally of the season early in the fourth narrowed the deficit to three, but the Hoyas could draw no closer as Loyola notched the next two goals. Max Seligmann’s second score of the game with 4:01 left was not enough to spur a late comeback, as the Greyhounds scored less than a minute later to close the scoring at 11-6.
The Hoyas dropped five spots in the Nike/Inside Lacrosse poll to No. 13 and will need to bounce back quickly to avoid a further fall. Georgetown faces No. 16 UMass on Saturday in a neutral-site contest in Hartford, Conn. The match-up will be critical to both sides’ tournament hopes.
“We need to take care of business going forward,” Urick said. “We’ve got three games left, three good opponents, three good teams. It is what it is. We need to keep moving forward, and learn from this last one. We can’t dwell on it; we’ve just got to start focusing on UMass. They’re legit.”
