Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Women’s Lacrosse | GU Preps for Defending National Champ UMD

The Georgetown women’s lacrosse team (0-1) will travel to play No. 1 Maryland (1-0) — the defending national champion — Saturday, following a 10-6 loss in their season opener against the Delaware Blue Hens (1-0) last Friday despite the Hoyas’ early lead.

Although Georgetown did not get the victory it wanted, Head Coach Ricky Fried emphasized that there were more positives than negatives in his team’s performance.

“The biggest negative was our shooting,” Fried said. “We were 6-for-29. … If we can’t shoot at a higher percentage than that we are going to be in trouble. Positives were that we got good quality shots. We had nine different players taking those shots, and we won 60 percent of draw controls. Defensively, we were able to hold them to a settled offense and there were no transition opportunities.”

Senior attack Corinne Etchison and graduate student attack Morgan Rubin led Georgetown in scoring with two goals apiece, while freshman midfielder Francesca Whitehurst totalled two assists in her first collegiate game.

Junior attack Colleen Lovett scored the first goal of the game within the first two minutes, and sophomore midfielder Hannah Seibel scored right after to put Georgetown up 2-0 within the first five minutes of the period.

On the defensive end, junior goalkeeper Maddy Fisher had three saves, while senior goalkeeper Megan McDonald also had three saves after entering the game during the second half.

Etchison agreed with Fried that the offense must play stronger and finish on a greater number of shot opportunities.

“We showed that we have a lot of potential and a lot of young new faces,” Etchison said. “Our major weakness was our shooting, and we really struggled. We aim to be over 50 percent and that just wasn’t the case. I think we have a good group of girls who really understand what they are doing and we just need to clean up our stick work and our shooting.”

Shooting will be a crucial element in Georgetown’s upcoming game against Maryland on Saturday. The teams faced off last season when the Hoyas lost 12-3, the Terrapins outshooting them, 29-19.

Fisher played the whole game in the net and had nine saves. The first 10 minutes of the game were scoreless, as the Hoya defense held steady against the high-powered Terrapin offense. Lovett, then-senior attack Caroline Tarzian and current senior midfielder Kristen Bandos scored for the Hoyas.

The Hoyas are 4-21 all-time against the Terps with a mark of 1-11 at home. In recent seasons, Georgetown fell to Maryland 19-10 in 2014 and 8-5 in 2013.

Fried acknowledges that Maryland is one of the toughest opponents his team will play all season, but he knows what Georgetown needs to do in order to slow down its opponent’s offense.

“We need to keep them out of transition. They’re a transition, settled, go-to-goal team and if we allow them to play that style — if we allow them to play like that — it’s going to be a really long day for us,” Fried said. “We need to control the tempo of the game, and we can’t allow them to push fast breaks. If it does get settled, we need to be really organized and engaged on the defensive end of the field because they are very athletic and very capable.”

Maryland was unanimously projected to win the Big Ten championship in the conference coaches’ preseason poll, and senior midfielder Taylor Cummings, senior defender Alice Mercer and sophomore attack Megan Whittle were all named preseason First Team All-Americans by Inside Lacrosse. Maryland beat William and Mary (0-1) 19-7 on Sunday, and Cummings caused five turnovers, scored four goals, had two assists and picked up two ground balls. Junior midfielder Zoe Stukenberg also scored four goals while adding one assist, while Whittle tallied a hat trick.

Coming into the game, Maryland was 32-9 all-time in season openers and 9-0 in season openers under Head Coach Cathy Reese. The Terps added 10 new athletes to the program this season, seven of whom were named in Inside Lacrosse Magazine’s Top 50 freshmen rankings. Maryland is currently on a 41-game win streak on its home turf and has not lost in College Park since March 10, 2012.

The players can expect to see some intense practices leading up to the game, but Fried and the players are prepared and motivated.

“We just need to play fast to assimilate what Maryland is going to do,” Fried said. “We play differently, but we need to get into the routine of not getting a rest on defense. We need to get back and force them to play a seven-versus-seven game.”

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