The football team may still be suffering from the Homecoming jinx, but the Georgetown fútbol team was on the mark, capping the weekend festivities with two clean-sheet wins against Villanova and Rutgers.

Hoya alumni were dotted amongst the crowd as the Hoyas (6-2-1, 3-1 Big East) took on the Wildcats (4-3-1, 1-2) Friday afternoon.

People were still filing into the bleachers when, just five minutes into the game, sophomore forward Uche Onyeador threaded a pass through the Wildcats’ backline, finding junior forward Jose Colchao, who put it in the back of the net for the Hoyas’ first and only goal of the game.

The early goal, however, was both “a good and a bad thing,” according to Head Coach Brian Wiese.

“I think we relaxed a bit after we scored,” he said. “I think we let Villanova start running the game at that stage.”

After the Hoyas’ early tally, they played defensively for the remainder of the game, although Colchao, Onyeador and freshman midfielder Ian Christianson had a few looks on the goal.

The Wildcats outshot the Hoyas in both halves, 5-4 in the first and 8-1 in the second, but an excellent performance between the posts by redshirt sophomore goalkeeper Mark Wilber denied Villanova any opportunity to equalize.

“It took a pretty special performance from big Mark Wilber to give us the win,” Wiese said.

Even the Wildcats’ Head Coach Tom Carlin praised Wilber’s effort in a grueling 90 minutes, which saw the New Mexico native make seven saves. “I give a lot of credit to Georgetown, especially their keeper,” Carlin said in a press release. “They got an early goal and finished out with the home win.”

Wilber was named as the Big East goalkeeper of the week for his clean-sheet weekend. Sunday’s shutout against Rutgers (5-3-0, 3-1) was his third in three games, maintaining his perfect save percentage on the season.

The contest against the Scarlet Knights started out in much the same vein as the one against the Wildcats – just over four minutes into the first half, junior midfielder Seth C’deBaca linked with Colchao. Colchao then returned the previous game’s favor, floating in a delivery that Onyeador put away with a diving header for the first goal of the game.

“Uche and Jose have formed a great partnership, and it’s great that Jose was able to repay Uche with an assist for the goal from Friday,” Wiese said in a press release. “It’s nice seeing two guys working off each other and to get production from two of our forwards.”

Rutgers’ attempts to fight back took a nasty turn at the 34th minute, when the Scarlet Knights’ junior midfielder Yannick Salmon was shown his second yellow card for a rough challenge, resulting in an automatic red card and ejection from the game.

The Knights, down to 10 men, still managed to keep the Blue and Gray at bay. Although the Hoyas outshot the Knights by a whopping 20-6, it wasn’t until the dying minutes of the game that the home team tallied a second goal to put the game away. With only seconds left on the clock, C’deBaca broke away from the pack and spotted freshman midfielder Andy Riemer down the right side of the pitch. Riemer rocketed it past the keeper for Georgetown’s second goal of the game and his second goal of the season.

The Rutgers victory was marked by the 15-year reunion of the 1994 Hoya team, the last Blue and Gray squad to get into the NCAA tournament. With many recent alumni back to witness the action as well, Wiese said it felt like “a big extended family reunion . like getting back together for Thanksgiving dinner.”

The Hoyas do not have long to celebrate. They have to prepare for next weekend’s powerhouse opponents, the University of Connecticut.

“At the end of the day, we were happy with our results,” Wiese said, who felt that the Villanova game was not one of the Hoyas’ shining moments. “But as coaches, we’re always looking for perfection and we know we’ll never get it, but we try to get as close to it as we can. We have a lot of work still left to do.”

The Hoyas will face the Huskies on the road at Storrs, Conn., a venue that Wiese calls one of the toughest places to play as an away team.

Kickoff will take place at 7 p.m on Saturday.”