COLLEGE PARK, Md. – For the No. 3 Hoyas (8-1), it was deja vu all over again. For the No. 7 Terrapins (9-4), it was a stinging defeat.
Junior attacker Brittany Baschuk – for the second straight game – dodged past her defender, fired towards the goal, and converted, giving Georgetown its second consecutive overtime victory, an 11-10 nail-biter over Maryland.
For Baschuk, who scored a game winner in overtime last Friday against North Carolina, it was just business as usual.
“We were running a play, and I just kinda followed through on it and it worked out well,” she said.
Head Coach Ricky Fried was a bit more enthusiastic about the score. “We set up a play, we ran it three times, it didn’t work any of those times,” he said. “So prior to running the play, I said if she doesn’t have Coco on the screen, just go to go, and she said great, `Going to Goal.’. She stepped up and she stuck the shot.”
“I think our new play in overtime will be just to give the ball to Brittany,” he quipped.
Maryland had a different take on the overtime battle. “There is a lot of parity [in college lacrosse], but it really sucks to lose,” Head Coach Cindy Timchal said.
Just getting to overtime was a war of its own. After falling down 5-3 in the first half,
Georgetown needed an answer before halftime and took a timeout to try to find that solution. Luckily, they were able to locate exactly what they needed.
It took less than a minute for senior midfielder Paige Andrews to put the ball in the back of the net, and less than a minute after that for Stanwick to do the same on a nifty spin move. In the last 19 second of the half, both sophomore attacker Zan Morley and junior attacker Schuyler Sutton scored goals of their own, Sutton’s with just two ticks left on the clock. In under two minutes, Stanwick controlled three draws and the Hoyas had erased a two-goal deficit and taken a two-score advantage.
“Maryland had a lot of momentum, and it was at the point where we needed to step up. . So we all made a decision that it was now and we came out hard, won the draw, and put the goal in the back of the net,” Stanwick said.
The onset of the second half, however, signaled the Terrapins’ turn to raise the stakes, as they combined light-quick fast breaks with a renewed determination on the draw with strong, physical defense to score four unanswered goals to begin the half.
“I think they just came out fast and strong,” Stanwick said. “That is their MO. They are just a great team and they are going to scores and they just happened to score goals right in the second half.”
Georgetown scored two of the next three goals – Stanwick and Poole each tallied a score – to draw the Hoyas to within one.
Still, with as many as five minutes remaining, the Terrapins went into the slowdown offense, running over two minutes off of the clock before they set up their offense. Maryland seemed poised for a victory.
The Hoyas had other plans. Pressure defense by Georgetown knocked the ball free with 2:32 remaining, and Stanwick came up with the loose ball, giving the Hoyas one last chance on offense.
“Well we just have to take care of the ball,” Timchal said of her team’s attempt to run out the clock. “And that happens. We were in position to win the game and we just couldn’t do what we needed to do.”
Georgetown worked the ball around the 8-meter fan for upwards of a minute, setting its offense and playing for one good shot. With 1:30 remaining, Baschuk fed Sutton a pass directly in front of the goal, and the Maryland native bounced a shot past the Terrapin goalie – the ball narrowly missed bouncing over the goal – and tied the game. Neither team made much noise in the final minute and a half, sending the contest to an extra frame.
The first period of the overtime went by without a score, as did the first 2:44 of the second half of overtime. But with the clock reading 16 seconds, Baschuk dodged past her defender, headed towards the goal, and ripped the winning score past the goalie. The Hoyas won the ensuing draw, and finally were able to breathe a sigh of relief.
“I mean it feels good to be in overtime,” Stanwick said. “But, I feel that probably being in overtime last time probably helped us to handle the pressure and realize that six minutes is a long time, and that while things were going our way in the beginning, we needed to pull through in the end.”
For Fried, getting to overtime was almost soothing. “The tighter it is, the more relaxed I get,” he said. “Because at that point, we’ve played well, we have nothing to lose and we know that our kids are going to step up.”
Step up they did. Junior goalie Maggie Koch had 10 saves and held the high-powered Maryland offense nearly four goals below their season average. Baschuk had a goal and two assists on the afternoon, and Sutton and Stanwick – who improved upon her nation’s best 6.88 draw controls per game with 11 against the Terrapins – both recorded hat tricks.
“[Stanwick] steps up, she is a gamer, she knows what it takes to win. She is willing to do whatever she has to do, and to our credit, a lot of the people around the circle were doing their job.”
The Hoyas have not felt the sting of defeat since a March 18 loss at Duke. After Wednesday’s narrow victory, they will be able to go at least four more days without feeling it. But Georgetown can also expect its fair share of challenges before the playoffs begin, as it faces five more ranked opponents, including No. 2 Johns Hopkins to close out the regular season.
Georgetown returns to the field on Sunday against Boston University in Boston, Mass. The opening draw is set for noon.
