Georgetown’s 2006 campaign looks worse with each match. The Hoyas took home a tie and a loss from its second-straight weekend road trip with a 1-1 tie at Pittsburgh and a 3-0 loss at No. 7 West Virginia.
“It certainly was a difficult weekend,” Georgetown Head Coach Dave Nolan said. “Four games on the road is tough, and these games were especially rough.”
Georgetown (4-8-5, 1-6-2) was haunted by old demons against Pittsburgh (7-6-3, 2-5-2) on Friday, giving up a goal on a missed defensive clear. In the 29th minute, freshman forward Ashley Habbel happened to be in perfect position, as a careening pass from sophomore forward Meta Haley met Habbel awkwardly and bounded towards the goal. It appeared that junior keeper Jade Higgins had a bead on the ball, but it found its way around her to put the Panthers up 1-0.
The Panthers’ home pitch doubles as a rugby field and the bounces it provided were not kind to the Hoyas.
“We thought it was a harmless looking ball, bouncing right to Jade,” Nolan said. “But it took a funny hop and hopped completely past her.”
Senior midfielder Chrissy Skogen scored her sixth goal of the season against the Panthers, making her offensive contributions nearly 50 percent of the Hoyas’ 13 goals this year. Skogen’s score was the lone highlight for Georgetown, as she took junior defender Karen Waskewich’s fifth assist of the season and sent it high for the equalizing goal in the 30th minute.
Against the No. 7 Mountaineers, the Hoyas faced one of the most physical teams in the nation. West Virginia is currently leading the Big East American Division with a 13-1-2 overall record (7-1-1 in the conference).
“Quite frankly, they were just bigger and stronger than us,” Nolan said. “They were physical in a good way. They may be the hardest working team in the country right now.”
The Mountaineers wasted no time showing their prowess. In the seventh minute, Everett assisted junior forward Kim Bonilla for a soft goal from short range.
Then, in the 14th minute, Everett took the ball at the top of her own 18-yard box and managed to dribble the length of the field unchecked. Higgins came up off her line, and Everett tucked the ball into the lower right corner for her team-leading 15th goal of the season.
“The second goal was the softest goal we’ve given up all year,” Nolan said. “They’ve been good all year, but on those first two goals, our back line and keeper let us down.”
The 2-0 lead let West Virginia scale back. They did not score for the rest of the half but Everett still had one more goal saved up for the second half.
In the 53rd minute Bonilla returned the favor to her assister, bending a corner kick towards the GU goal. The ball glanced off of the back of Everett’s head and in.
Georgetown is 3-0-3 this season when Skogen scores and 1-8-2 when she does not.
The second and third leading goal scorers, with two goals each, junior forwards Sarah Fetters and Elaina Filauro have been silent recently. Fetters has not seen the back of the net since Sept. 13 against American. While Filauro scored recently against Providence on Oct. 1, her previous goal was in the first game of the season on Aug. 25 against Binghamton.
Georgetown has not scored in a loss yet this year, getting outscored 13-0 in defeats.
So far, Georgetown has scored 14 goals in 17 games. Last year the Hoyas had 34 goals in the same number of games with essentially the same roster, an inexplicable offensive drop off.
“Somewhere, the production is missing,” Nolan said. One problem is that Georgetown has not had any opportunities for penalty shots. Skogen scored 10 goals last year, but four of those came on penalty shots. Georgetown has taken zero penalty shots this year.
“The attacking players all have to hold their hands up and admit that they haven’t chipped in,” Nolan said.
Officially eliminated from the Big East tournament with the loss to West Virginia, Georgetown will begin its final home weekend on Friday at 3 p.m. against reeling DePaul (3-11-2, 0-8-1), which has lost nine of its last 10 games and is the only team behind Georgetown in the Big East National division.
“We haven’t won that many games this year,” Nolan said. “We can’t go into the game against DePaul and just expect to win it. They haven’t had the season they would have liked to. They have nothing to lose against us.”
On Sunday at 1 p.m., Georgetown closes out its season against No. 1 Notre Dame (14-0-1, 7-0-1) which had its 49 game scoring streak snapped last Friday against Connecticut with a 0-0 tie.
Notre Dame has outscored its opponents 50-3 this season.
“We know what we’re facing in Notre Dame,” Nolan said, “But if we play like we played against Louisville and against UConn, I think we can keep it close against Notre Dame and we’ll see what happens.”
Both games are on North Kehoe Field.