Texas, ranked fourth in the nation before the 2007 college football season, opened with a victory over Arkansas State, a team that finished below .500 in the Sun Belt Conference. Kansas, ranked fourth in the preseason for basketball, began its season with a 29-point pasting of Louisiana-Monroe, also a sub .500 team from the Sun Belt Conference. For Georgetown’s men’s lacrosse team, currently ranked fourth in the nation, there will be no easy season opener as they begin their 2008 campaign. Looming for the Hoyas is a home tilt against perennial ACC and national power Maryland, which is currently ranked seventh in the nation.”It’s just one of those things,” 18-year Head Coach Dave Urick said about the early-season challenge for his team. “We would love to play someone else a game or two before you have to play at this level. We just have to deal with it.”For the past five years, the Hoyas have scheduled Maryland as its opener – during the 2002-2003 season, the contest was postponed until later in the season due to weather condition – in what has quickly become a great rivalry. It was only natural that these two powers, separated by just over 10 miles, would play each other, and they have put forth some intense matchups. Georgetown dropped the first five bouts in the series before getting an 8-6 decision last season at the Field Hockey and Lacrosse Complex in College Park.”[The rivalry] is one where over the past few years there have been some incidents that both teams wish hadn’t happened,” senior goaltender Miles Kass said. “So, it’s a pretty heated rivalry. More so, I think, than our Duke or our Syracuse [rivalries] are because of some of the bad blood.”Urick said he has talked to his team all week about concentrating on the game and avoiding on-field confrontations.”It think it’s become awfully intense, and we want to make sure that the players, on both teams, approach it in the best possible way and just make sure it’s a good hard-fought game without allowing it to degenerate into anything else,” he said.Georgetown should have a serious experience advantage with 38 returning lettermen from last year’s team, which made it to the quarterfinals of the NCAA tournament. Leading the way for Georgetown will be senior attacker Brendan Cannon. Cannon, who had 21 goals and 23 assists en route to being named ECAC Offensive Player of the Year last year, thinks that execution is the key for the Georgetown offense in attacking a Terp defense, which was decimated by graduation.”Executing things we had in place in the fall and that we have been working on all preseason,” Kass said. “As long as we execute the things we have in place, we should be okay against these guys.”While most would think that Maryland’s inexperience will give the Hoyas an advantage, Kass believes that the Hoyas need to be prepared for the talented young Terps, who include four of the top 20 attackers from last year’s recruiting class, most notably 6-foot-5, 230-pound freshman Grant Catalino.”I think sometimes people get too enamored with inexperience getting too inextricably tied to freshmen, and I think what we need to do is worry about ourselves,” Kass said. “Throughout time there have been a lot of teams, even if you look at the `freshman five’ who were part of the [1993] Michigan basketball team, they were incredible, and they went to the national championship. So you can’t get too enamored with, `Oh, they’re freshmen they have inevitable flaws.'”Georgetown will rely on senior defenseman and ECAC preseason Defensive Player of the Year Jerry Lambe to thwart the young and confident Maryland attack. Lambe was named ECAC Defensive Player of the Year and second team All-American last season, and he is arguably the best defender in the nation. His experience and leadership will be important for the Hoyas.Youth and experience aside, Saturday’s contest at the Multi-Sport Facility is sure to be an exciting clash between two top-notch teams, full of all the intensity and energy one has come to expect from this rivalry.When asked about the game he was most anticipating playing this season, Cannon did not hesitate: “Saturday. It’s the first one, it’s the next one and it’s what is on our mind right now.”Game time is set for noon Saturday at the Multi-Sport Facility.”