It was David versus Goliath on Sunday and Goliath won – but only barely.

Georgetown lost a 1-0 nail-biter to No.1 Notre Dame on Sunday to end its season, two days after defeating DePaul 4-0 at home on Friday. Undefeated Notre Dame and reeling DePaul could not have been more different opponents this weekend but Georgetown turned in impressive performances against both.

Notre Dame 1, Georgetown 0

Georgetown (5-7-5, 2-7-2) strode into Sunday’s matchup against No.1 Notre Dame (16-0-1, 9-0-1) with nothing to lose.

“It’s never a good result when you lose, but it was a great performance,” Head Coach Dave Nolan said. “But today I think our seniors can walk off the field and say, `We were in the game until the last minute against the No.1 team in the country.'”

The Irish have been ranked No.1 all season long, a 0-0 tie against Connecticut on Oct. 13 standing as their only blemish.

From kickoff, the Irish were faster and more physical than the Hoyas, dominating headers and consistently delivering hard tackles that Georgetown could not respond to. Quick clears and a cohesive, communicating back line, however, kept Georgetown in the game, mounting counterattack after counterattack.

“We’ve been playing really well together in the back with the same lineup for the last few weeks,” Hoya junior defender Karen Waskewich said. Anchored by 5-foot-10 center back Stephanie Zare, the Hoyas’ defense shut down the Irish’s biggest weapon, sophomore forward Kerri Hanks (14 goals, 10 assists this season), with dogged pursuit.

“I have to give [junior defender] Vanessa Joyce a lot of credit,” Nolan said. “Vanessa found herself matched up against [Hanks] a lot of times and she did a really good job of disrupting Hanks. Obviously Hanks is a fantastic player, but there are other good players out there.”

Although she did not score in the contest, Hanks took a free kick on the right side of Georgetown’s box, from 20 yards out, in the 47th minute.

Hanks delivered the ball to sophomore defender Carrie Dew, who headed the ball off of Joyce and into the back of the net for the Irish’s only goal of the game.

Until that point, the game was played mostly in Notre Dame’s half. Zare and fifth-year midfielder Alexandra Hardy were physical presences that cleared ball after ball, stymieing several good Notre Dame chances. The Irish’s best opportunity to make it 2-0 came in the 55th minute, when an errant rebound off of junior keeper Jade Higgins rolled onto Hanks’ foot in front of a wide open net. Hanks fired the shot well over the net and onto the Georgetown University Medical Center helipad.

“The last two or three times we’ve been here, it’s been a difficult game; we haven’t played great,” Notre Dame Head Coach Randy Waldrum said. “I thought a lot of credit goes to the Hoyas disrupting our team.” Hanks underperformed by her own standards (42 goals in 41 career games played), and Notre Dame received two yellow cards.

“I’m not disappointed with, `We didn’t score X number of goals today,’ but I’m disappointed with our overall performance – I thought we got outworked today,” Waldrum said.

One of those two Irish yellow cards nearly cost Notre Dame its 1-0 lead. With two seconds to play, Irish senior defender Christie Shaner recieved the card three yards outside of the 18-yard box, stopping the clock and giving Waskewich one more chance to work her free-kick magic.

The comeback was not meant to be, as the the ball was forcefully cleared and the clock expired.

Though Senior Day ended in a loss, the Hoyas’ four seniors – forward Cristina Araps and midfielders Alex Hardy, Shante Cofield and Skogen – left the field with their heads held high, according to Nolan.

“This is how you play when you’ve nothing to lose and everything to gain,” he said. “And I think we gained a lot today. We gained a lot of respect, a lot of respect for ourselves after a rough season.”

Georgetown 4, DePaul 0

On Friday, Georgetown had its biggest offensive performance of the season, netting four goals from unexpected contributors.

Junior forward Elaina Filauro, who had not scored in over two weeks, had two first-half goals, both assisted by Skogen and both in the box, a dangerous place for the Hoyas this season where countless errors have led to almost-goals instead of points.

“We’ve had difficulty in the final third with composure,” Filauro said. “But today we had a lot of composure in the box. We were very confident coming into this game and we don’t have a lot to lose.”

After scoring five goals last season, Hardy spent half of the season playing defense and had not yet found the back of the net. But in the 58th minute, Skogen sent her third assist of the day to Hardy, who had a clear opportunity from the top of the 18-yard box and buried it.

“It was nice to play center mid again and to be part of the offense,” Hardy said. “We finally put our opportunities away.”

Looking Ahead

The Hoyas took a long time to come together as a cohesive winning soccer team this year, but two strong performances against a team with nothing to lose – and the best team in the nation – give them something to build on for the long offseason.

Nolan has already planned a four-game, eight-day trip to Europe for the spring and looks forward to having a full seven months to work with freshman forward Toni Marie Hudson.

Skogen, the main offensive cog for Georgetown, will graduate, and a big part of next season will hinge on the development of juniors Sarah Fetters, Waskewich, Filauro, Joyce and redshirt Sarah Jordan.

“I’m proud of our team and I think they’re going to have a great season next year,” Skogen said. “We have some good recruits coming in, and I know this group of juniors is going to take the team very far.”