GU Battles Rutgers to Tie

The Georgetown women’s soccer team took its four-game unbeaten streak to Rutgers on Sunday for its all-important first Big East Mid-Atlantic game. Coming off a grueling 2-2 double overtime thriller against Columbia on Thursday, the team was battling injuries to key players and fatigue in general. Despite these drawbacks, the Hoyas trudged through two extra sessions for the second straight game to tie the Scarlet Knights, 1-1.

“It was a game we could’ve gotten, but whenever you go on the road and don’t come back with a loss, it’s not a bad result,” Head Coach Diane Drake said. “It was a good start in divisional play.”

For the third-consecutive game, Georgetown gave up the first goal of the game when Rutgers’ Keri Lages put the ball past senior goalkeeper Emily Main at the 14:28 mark.

“It took us about 15 or 20 minutes to get into the game,” Drake said. “For whatever reason, it takes that first goal to motivate us.”

Less than five minutes later the Hoyas responded, as senior midfielder Liz Delgado got her sixth goal of the season off a pass from sophomore defender Casey Hoffman. The goal puts Delgado second in both career goals (15) and points (44) for Georgetown.

“We had a heroic goal from Delgado,” Drake said. “Her goal showed great courage and ability.”

For the next 100 minutes, the Hoyas and Scarlet Knights played to a stalemate as both teams got tired and never really took advantage.

“Fatigue played into the game and in the overtime periods, the girls were really struggling,” Drake said. “It was a battle of pure will for both teams.”

Georgetown did have two opportunities in the second half to take the lead. On the first, freshman midfielder Alyssa Conlow laid the ball out to junior forward Kelly Haden. Haden found herself one-on-one with the Rutgers’ goalkeeper from 10 yards out, but she fired it wide. The second chance came with five seconds left as Delgado was left one-on-one with the goalkeeper from 40 yards out. However she misjudged the time left on the clock, which prevented her from moving up to get a closer shot.

we didn’t make the big play . We had a couple brilliant opportunities to put us up 1-0, and we didn’t do it.”

The Hoyas’ most notable scoring opportunity of the game came midway through the second half when junior forward Kenny Owens was left wide open in front of the left goal post. Owens received a nice feed, but his shot soared over the net, leaving the game scoreless.

Despite the Hoyas’ scoring opportunities, the Red Storm held the upper hand throughout the game, outshooting the Hoyas 14-8, while holding a 6-4 advantage in corner kicks.

Sophomore goalkeeper Brian O’Hagan played perhaps the best game of his short career so far, keeping the Hoyas in the game until the final minutes with several huge saves. O’Hagan thwarted a breakaway opportunity earlier in the game by leaving the net and charging the attacker. He finished the day with seven saves.

“I thought [O’Hagan] did his job,” Tabatznik said of his goalkeeper.

On Friday, the Hoyas played an inferior Syracuse squad to a 0-0 tie, a major disappointment, according to Tabatznik.

“I thought we were a much better team,” he said, “[But] I thought we played extremely poorly.”

Despite playing poorly, the Hoyas dominated the game from start to finish, firing 19 shots against the Orangemen, while holding a 7-3 advantage in corner kicks.

The star of the game, however, was Syracuse goalkeeper Kevin Bacher, who lived up to his reputation as the Big East’s preseason Goalkeeper of the Year with his second shutout of the season, a 10-save effort.

Across the field, O’Hagan did what he had to do to record his second shutout of the year as well with a three-save effort.

The Hoyas look to put an end to their three-game winless streak this Saturday when they travel to Rhode Island to square off against a struggling Providence team. The Friars have won only once this season in eight games and are currently 1-3-1 in the Big East.