From the moment she kicked off the afternoon by singing the national anthem right up until she scored her fourth goal of the game – one that dashed any chance of a comeback by the University of Virginia – Georgetown’s junior attacker Schuyler Sutton was the star of the show.
The No. 3 Hoyas (10-2, 3-0 Big East) keyed upon Sutton’s four goals, a career high, and two scores from junior attacker Coco Stanwick, and came away from the Multi-Sport Facility with a wire-to-wire 8-4 victory over the No. 4 Cavaliers (13-3, 4-1 ACC).
“We came out and we played a very, very good first half as a team, offensively, defensively and through the midfield,” Georgetown Head Coach Ricky Fried said. “Virginia is obviously a tremendous team.”
The Hoyas’ win comes on the heels of four consecutive one-goal games, three of which – all wins – were decided in overtime. For Georgetown, the start-to-finish win reaffirms its place among the nation’s best teams.
Georgetown was without the help of junior attacker Brittany Baschuk, who scored the game winning goal in two of the Hoyas’ three overtime victories. Her season was ended last week by a knee injury, but she was hardly forgotten by her teammates. Each player wore Baschuk’s number 2 somewhere on their body.
“Brittany was just starting to contribute at a higher level and [she had] an unfortunate accident in practice so she is out for the rest of the season,” Fried said. “And, you know as a junior, they want to make sure that they remember her in some way while they are playing.”
After Georgetown jumped out to a 4-1 lead halfway through the first period, Sutton spun from the left side of the 12-meter arc and with a defender at each side, managed to position herself in front of the net for the goal. Sutton scored again 90 seconds later to give Georgetown a commanding 6-1 win.
“For the first time,” she said, “I just didn’t think about anything, and just I guess I had a lot of confidence in my team and myself.”
Fried agreed, saying, “I think the biggest thing is, we know she is capable of playing that way. . It is just a matter of her concentrating and showing up and focusing on what she is able to do and not focusing on some of the negatives when she makes a mistake.”
Sophomore attacker Megan O’Malley scored an unassisted goal with seven minutes left in the first half to bring the Cavaliers to within four goals at 6-2, and neither team was able to score again in the period.
Both defenses settled down in the second half, with each allowing just two goals. Sutton converted her third goal of the game to start the second half scoring, but Leachman scored the next two to bring the Cavaliers back to within three. For a Georgetown team that had played four consecutive one-goal games, it looked as though they were in for yet another nail-biter.
Unfortunately for Virginia, though, three goals was as close as the Cavaliers would get. Sutton scored once again with four minutes to go, junior goalie Maggie Koch was spectacular down the stretch – she recorded eight second-half saves – and Virginia was simply unable to come back against the staunch Georgetown defense.
“Certainly, [The Hoyas] were able to control the clock and every time we were down a handful, and they were taking time off of the clock, it put some more pressure on the attack,” Virginia Head Coach Julie Myers said.
“But Georgetown is a very deliberate, very consistent, well coached team so we knew that they were going to do that, I don’t think anything caught us off guard but we just really failed to make our opportunities count for us down on the offensive end.”
Virginia can thank Koch for most of its offensive futility. The transfer from Duquesne recorded 12 saves while allowing just four goals, and in the process improved upon her nation’s best goals against average (6.9) and Big East’s best save percentage (54.1 percent).
Take it from Myers: Koch was on her game. “I think Maggie had a nice game,” she said. “I think she ended up with 13 or so saves [she had 12], so anytime a goalie makes 13 saves, your shooters aren’t doing great but your goalie is also very hot.”
Koch, however, gave most of the credit to her defense, one that ranks as the nation’s best scoring defense.
“That was by far the best we’ve played all season, so far. [The defense was] forcing terrible shots. I feel like I really didn’t have to do very much,” she said.
Draw controls, which for most of the season had been the Hoyas’ strong suit, was a struggle against the Cavaliers. UVA won the battle of the draw 9-6, including 5-1 in the second half. Stanwick, the nation’s leader in draw controls per game (7.09), had just four.
“[The Cavaliers] are very athletic, a very scrappy group, they have a little more height than we do at some spots,” Fried said. “I think when we really needed it, we did a good job of boxing out, but a few times we relied on Coco getting it as opposed to helping her get it.”
The difference however, was that Virginia was unable to capitalize on the extra possessions.
“I think we actually won draws and groundballs. I think we, actually – on a not great Virginia day against a really good Georgetown team – did pretty well in terms of getting possession, we just didn’t do a nice job of making those possessions turn into goals,” Myers said.
While Virginia heads to the ACC tournament in Baltimore and a likely matchup with North Carolina, a team they fell to 10-9 on arch 18, the Hoyas travel to the University of Connecticut on Saturday, when they will look to further cement their hold atop the Big East and continue their 33-game Big East winning streak.
“I think we are in a great spot right now,” Sutton said. “We just need to keep working our way up there and if we keep going at this rate, we’ll be unstoppable at the end and that is where we want to be at the end.”
The opening draw is set for 3:45 in Storrs, Conn.
