The Georgetown men’s soccer team suffered a tough loss after Big East foe Virginia Tech rallied for three unanswered goals in the second half, giving the Hokies a 4-1 victory over Georgetown.
A crowd of 409 gathered in the stands of Moseley Field in Blacksburg, Va., on an overcast Sunday to watch the two teams battle on the field in a decisive game as the season draws closer to its completion. The first half progressed uneventfully until the 18th minute, when a tough foul by a Hokie defender led to a penalty shot for the Hoyas. Freshman goalkeeper Chase Harrison deftly saved the ball, keeping the game scoreless.
The two teams remained scoreless until the end of the first half, when a Virginia Tech forward received the throw in and aimed the ball for the goal. With 53 seconds remaining in the half, freshman forward Matt Bright got his foot on the ball to redirect it into the goal, giving Virginia Tech a 1-0 halftime lead.
“This was a game where there should not have been a half when we didn’t have a goal. It wasn’t a good half by either team. It was very disappointing and difficult that their goal came so close to halftime,” Head Coach Keith Tabatznik said.
Georgetown returned to the field invigorated, controlling the first 15 minutes of the second half. Their aggressiveness paid off as freshman forward Benjamin Jefferson-Dow took advantage of a Hokie defender’s mistake and passed the ball into the crease where freshman forward Kemmons Feldman took it and booted it past Harrison to even the score at 1-1 in the 63rd minute.
The Hoyas had trouble keeping their lead, though, and only three minutes later Virginia Tech senior back Greg Medsker blasted a direct kick from the midfield into the box, where junior forward Bobby O’Brien headed it to teammate junior back Lasse ertins, who earned the second Hokie goal.
“After we scored the goal, we became a very ordinary team. We were certainly not playing collectively, like a team that needed a win to get into the postseason,” Tabatznik said.
Things only went down from there for the Hoyas, as the Hokies gained momentum on offense. In the 75th minute, O’Brien added to the score with a 16-yard shot straight into the goal. Virginia Tech wrapped up the scoring with 5:20 left in the game when Hokie sophomore forward Ken Jonmaire received a pass inside the box and sent it into the goal.
From a statistical point of view, the two teams played evenly; the Hokies took 14 shots for the game while the Hoyas acquired 10. Hoya junior back Carl Skanderup led the team with three shots, while three other players each took two shots. Both Georgetown’s junior goalkeeper Tim Hogan and opposing goalkeeper Harrison amassed three saves for the game.
With the loss, the Hoyas fall to 5-8-0 for the season and 3-4-0 in the Big East, a precarious position as they are now one point out of the eighth and final spot for the Big East tournament. Fellow conference team Virginia Tech improved their record to 9-5-1 for the season and 4-3-0 in Big East.
Tabatznik looks toward the future with an eye toward past Big East trends. “We’re still in a pile of teams, some of us are going to make it and some won’t. There’s hardly been a year where the last game or two games hasn’t decided who goes to the tournament.”
The Hoyas go up against rival Notre Dame in a very important Big East match-up on Sunday on North Kehoe Field at 1 p.m.
“It’s playing out to be a huge game. There’s already a built-in rivalry between Notre Dame and Georgetown,” Tabatznik said. “Our backs are against the wall in the Big East and we have to get the results. This is a great opportunity for us to get a big win against a top team.”
