Freshman defender Elizabeth Wenger has helped the Georgetown defense to 9 shutouts in 16 games this year. Wenger, who has started 9 games this season, is an important part of a Hoyas defense that has allowed just 1 goal per game this season.
The No. 25 Georgetown women’s soccer team (10-3-3, 5-1-1) kept its Big East regular-season title hopes alive with a .500 record over the weekend, losing at St. John’s (9-6-1, 5-1-1) on Thursday night before beating Creighton (9-6-1, 1-5-1) on Sunday afternoon.
With two conference matches left, DePaul now leads the conference with 17 points, with Georgetown and St. John’s tied for second at 16; only one game remains between those three leaders, pitting DePaul against St. John’s on Friday, Oct. 31.
Freshman defender Liz Wenger, who proved vital against St. John’s, attributed the overall disappointing weekend in part to bad starts.
“As a team, we can focus on coming out with a little more energy,” Wenger said. “This weekend, with both games, it was kind of the same story. And I think we’ve realized that now, and we can do a couple things to fix it.”
Head Coach Dave Nolan agreed with Wenger’s assessment of the St. John’s match but thought the team may have deserved more in a second half full of Georgetown opportunities.
“They were a little bit better than us in the first half,” Nolan said. “And they scored on a wonder strike to go up 1-0 just before halftime, a 35-yard shot that took a funny skip off the turf. But the second half, we did enough to win two games. We hit the bar, had one cleared off the line, the keeper made three or four very good saves. … We just couldn’t find a way to score.”
The close loss to St. John’s broke an eight-game unbeaten run for the Hoyas, who had outscored opponents 17-6 over that span.
“It was a little frustrating,” Wenger said. “We played well, but we just didn’t come out with enough spark in the first half. And they got, I want to say, a lucky goal. It was a nice hit, but it had an unfortunate bounce on it.”
Though after Friday’s game the Red Storm appeared to be in control of the Big East, on Sunday they were upset at home by Providence 1-0, leaving the door open again to both DePaul and Georgetown.
At the same time, the Hoyas travelled to Omaha, Neb., to take on Creighton on a windy Senior Day which saw the Bluejays in need of at least a draw to stay alive for a spot in the Big East tournament.
“The problem we ran into with Creighton was that we caught them on Senior Day, so they were very fired up for the game,” Nolan said. “And also, we were going into a very strong wind in the first half. … But they never really looked like they were going to score.”
Creighton outshot Georgetown 8-2 in the first half, but after the break the Hoyas had the wind at their backs and began dictating the flow of the game.
“One of the things we had talked about when we scouted them was, because they play with a diamond midfield, there was a lot of space out wide for us to place it,” Nolan said. “And in the first half we never really did a good job of finding that space and playing off it. But the first time we did it in the game, Daphne [Corboz] changed the point of attack, got Jessie [Clinton] clean down the line with a lot of time and space.”
Clinton’s cross found senior forward Audra Ayotte at the back post, who finished the chance with aplomb in the 54th minute.
Unlike previous Georgetown matches against Duquesne, Xavier and Providence, neither St. John’s nor Creighton sat back in defense the entire match waiting for chances to counterattack. Instead, both teams attacked from the opening whistle, leading to relatively more open games, despite the low scorelines, and greater tests for the Hoya back line.
“It’s always different working with different people, even on the same level,” Wenger said about working with new defenders. “If the personnel changes, you have to learn how that person defends and what their weaknesses and strengths are in order to really work well with them.”
That back four of Wenger, freshman Drew Topor and seniors Marina Paul and Jessie Clinton has conceded just seven goals in the past 10 matches, propelling the team to a 7-2-1 record in those games.
Georgetown ends its regular-season home schedule against Villanova (5-8-3, 3-3-1) on Shaw Field at 1 p.m. on Sunday, looking to solidify a top-two spot in the Big East and a first-round bye in the tournament.
