Senior goalkeeper Cara Martin saved a penalty kick to lead the No. 2 Georgetown University women’s soccer team to a 4-3 penalties victory over the No. 7 West Virginia University Mountaineers in the second round of the NCAA tournament to book the Hoyas’ place in the Sweet 16.

The Hoyas (16-3-3, 10-0 Big East) faced an early rude awakening when the Mountaineers (14-3-4, 8-0-3 Big 12) immediately broke down the field and went through on goal in the first minute, peppering Martin with shots. 

Martin saved the initial onslaught, but after a failed clearance attempt, West Virginia regained possession, and forward Taylor White squared the ball to forward Ajanae Respass, who smashed it in to give the Mountaineers a 1-0 lead. 

The Hoyas did not let the early goal get to them. They took control of the game, and their first shot on target came from senior forward Natalie Means, who picked up the ball inside the box in the 12th minute. After shifting the ball onto her right foot, Means sent a curled effort in between defenders but straight at the Mountaineers’ goalie Bailey Herfurth, who clutched it gracefully. 

Thirty seconds later, senior midfielder Mary Cochran slipped a pass to graduate forward Maja Lardner behind the Mountaineers’ centerbacks, but Herfurth charged off her line in time to block the shot. 

The Hoyas kept the pressure on, however, and in the 22nd minute their moment finally came. Sophomore midfielder Lizzie Heller intercepted the ball in the Hoyas’ half before playing it into senior forward Henley Tippins’ feet on the halfway line. 

Tippins laid it off to Cochran, who played an inch-perfect through ball to Lardner down the right wing. Lardner drove to the goal line and then cut back to Cochran at the edge of the box, who sent a low-effort toward goal, which Heller, after sprinting over half the field, deflected in to tie the game 1-1. 

Georgetown’s next shot came in the 32nd minute, when Tippins stole the ball on the right wing and cut in onto her left foot, but she could only manage a low-effort that dribbled into Herfurth’s hands. 

The half finished quietly with the teams deadlocked at 1-1 heading into the break.

The second half was calmer than the first. In the 48th minute, Means recovered a West Virginia clearance following a Georgetown corner. Means fooled a defender with her first touch and knocked it from her left foot onto her right before sending a low-driven effort on goal, which Herfurth claimed easily. 

In the 58th minute, White fizzed a shot from the top of the box, which Martin plucked out of the air.

The next 20 minutes were uneventful, with a few corners but no chances culminating from them. The game headed to extra time after neither side could pull ahead in regulation.

In the 94th minute, the Hoyas received a shock when Mountaineers midfielder Maddie Levy knifed through multiple defenders before coming face to face with Martin. However, Levy could not control her effort, which sailed high and wide to the right from around the penalty spot.

Georgetown came straight back down the field, and a minute later, Lardner went down in the box following a race for the ball with Herfurth. After a video review, no penalty was awarded.

In the 106th minute, Means sent a low-driven effort across goal from the top left of the box, but no Hoya attacker could connect with it, and Herfurth claimed the ball. That was the last real action from open play, with tired legs and minds getting the best of both teams, who decided to take their chances with penalties. 

Senior midfielder Shay Montgomery kicked off the shootout for Georgetown, sending the ball past Herfurth into the bottom right corner to fire up the Hoya fans behind the goal and give Georgetown a 1-0 lead in the shootout. 

Forward/midfielder Anna Hauer went first for the Mountaineers, scoring in the bottom left corner to tie the shootout 1-1. 

Tippins shot next, sending her effort to the same spot Montgomery did, bottom right, to give the Hoyas a 2-1 lead. 

Defender Nyema Ingleton tied the shootout 2-2 with another shot into the bottom right corner, sending Martin the wrong way.

Lardner stepped up third for Georgetown, but sent her effort wide left. 

In what was the defining moment of the game, Martin stole West Virginia’s momentum on the very next kick, staying down the middle to make a kick-out save on midfielder Maya Leoni. 

After the save, the Hoyas never looked back. Heller fired one past Herfurth into the top left corner to give Georgetown a 3-2 lead. 

After Georgetown and West Virginia each scored again to make the shoot-out 4-3, midfielder Ava Arnold stepped up for the Mountaineers’ sudden-death kick. Her effort rang off the crossbar, sending Martin and the Hoyas into jubilee. Fans from behind the goal rushed the field and players hugged each other, grateful to squeak out a victory, albeit stressfully, on Shaw Field. 

After the game, Georgetown head coach Dave Nolan said he knew his team was capable of a comeback after allowing the early goal and praised his defense for holding firm the rest of the game. 

“I was disappointed with the goal we gave up in the first couple of minutes,” Nolan told The Hoya. “It’s so not like us. But I always felt we had at least 1 goal in us. It was just a matter of, could we keep them off the board?”

Nolan said he was proud of his players’ composure in the penalty shootout.

“When you get into a pressure situation, that’s a lot different from practice,” Nolan said. “So I got to give our kids credit for stepping up and taking them.”

The Hoyas are next up against No. 3 Florida State University Nov. 23 at noon on Shaw Field. They will look to beat Florida State and advance to the quarter-finals of the NCAA championship.