Georgetown will attempt to salvage a losing season in its final two games this weekend on North Kehoe Field. The Hoyas (4-8-5, 1-6-2) face DePaul (3-11-2, 0-8-1) on Friday at 3 p.m. and No. 1 Notre Dame on Sunday at 1 p.m.

DePaul is the only team behind Georgetown in the Big East National Division and, like Georgetown, expectations were high, but the results have been the exact opposite.

“We’ve been better than our record shows so far,” DePaul Assistant Coach Brian Rigby said. “We’ve had a lot of bad injuries, and we’ve had trouble clearing the ball from in front of the goal. We’ve missed the chances we’ve had this year.”

Both Georgetown and DePaul have trouble scoring goals; the Hoyas are averaging .82 goals per game and the Blue Demons are at .76. But while Georgetown has generally played its opponents close, surrendering only 19 scores, DePaul’s porous defense has allowed 35 goals.

The Blue Demons’ most recent loss, a 6-0 defeat, came at the hands of the Connecticut Huskies, a team Georgetown beat 2-0 in its last win on Oct. 1.

But the disappearance of the Georgetown offense and its propensity to give up soft, unearned goals means that just showing up against a Big East bottom-feeder is no longer enough.

“Coming into the game, DePaul has nothing to lose,” Head Coach Dave Nolan said. “They can come out and take risks from the beginning.”

DePaul does have nothing to lose – the team has not won a game since Sept. 10, and has been outscored 27-3 in that 0-9-1 stretch. But the Demons, still winless in conference play, are looking for one win to validate their season.

“We’re looking to win one before the end of the year,” Rigby said. “We’d like one or two Big East wins, that’s our goal for the season now. And I think, hopefully, we can get one at Georgetown.”

As for the Hoyas, they will have to use pride alone as a motivator.

“I hope we can get up for this game,” Nolan said. “It’s the end of the season, it’s exam time and, for all intents and purposes, our season will be over after this weekend.”

The Hoyas’ biggest game of the year will take place when the Irish come to town. Notre Dame entered the season ranked top in the nation and has lived up to its billing with an astronomical +47 goal differential, outscoring its opponents 50-3 over 17 games. The Irish have not allowed a goal since Sept. 29, when West Virginia scored once but ultimately lost 3-1.

Sunday’s contest against Notre Dame also marks senior day, and Georgetown will have a chance to honor its four seniors: Chrissy Skogen, Alexandra Hardy, Shante Cofield and Cristina Araps.

“Senior Day is always a funny day,” Nolan said. “It can motivate you or make you lose focus Nolan said. “But I don’t think that’ll happen. [The four seniors have] done a good job of keeping balanced at the end of a season when they could have given up a long time ago and started feeling sorry for themselves.

“I’m hoping they’re still unbeaten on Sunday because at that stage we’d be the team that has the best chance of ending their unbeaten record.”

The most vital cog in the Notre Dame machine is sophomore forward Kerri Hanks, a favorite for Big East offensive player of the year who leads the team with 12 goals. Meanwhile, freshman counterpart Michele Weisenhoffer has the team lead in points with 33, including 13 assists. That’s enough to make Weisenhoffer the top scorer in the nation.

Hanks’ production has fallen off from her Herculean freshman campaign of 28 goals – when the team scored 110 goals in 25 games – but the Irish are still favored to win any game they play.

Notre Dame has been too strong for Georgetown in recent history, beating the Hoyas 6-0 and 6-1 in their two meetings last year. If the Hoyas at least play close to the No. 1 team in the land for 90 minutes, it may be enough to make the season’s end a little less bitter.

“A good result against Notre Dame will go a long ways [toward] softening the blows of what has been a disappointing season, considering the goals that we set out,” Nolan said.

Those goals were to win at least two Big East tournament games and qualify for the NCAA tournament, Nolan said at the beginning of the season. Sunday, Georgetown’s “fab four” will have their last chance to do something memorable in the Blue and Gray – and to do it against the No. 1 team in the nation.