April 27, 2007
Syracuse, N.Y. – For the Notre Dame women’s lacrosse team, their first trip to the BIG EAST Women’s Lacrosse Tournament ended up being a case of too little, just a little too late.
Trailing 11-6 with less than 14 minutes left, the Irish scored five of the games final six goals but came up two goals short in a 12-10 loss to the Georgetown Hoyas. Junior Caitlin McKinney (Lafayette Hill, Pa.) paced the Notre Dame attack with five goals while sophomore Jillian Byers (Northport, Pa.) tacked on three markers and Mary Carpenter (Jr., Rochester, N.Y.) and Jane Stoeckert (So., Mendham. N.J.) scored once each.
Georgetown was led by BIG EAST attack player of the year Coco Stanwick who scored six goals and added an assist for seven points. Schuyler Sutton added two goals with Jordan Trautman, Bunny O’Reilly, Brittany Baschuk and Patty Piotrowicz getting one each.
The loss was the third in a row for 12th-ranked Notre Dame as the Irish fall to 11-6 on the year. Georgetown, ranked 10th in the nation improves to 10-6 for the season. The Hoyas will face the winners of the second semifinal between Syracuse and Rutgers. The Irish will now have to wait until May 8 to see if they will garner a berth in the 2007 NCAA Tournament.
“We came here to win a BIG EAST Championship and didn’t get it done,” said head coach Tracy Coyne following the game. “I thought that we played tentative early in the game but in the second half were more aggressive and helped get us back in the game.”
The first half belonged to Georgetown’s Stanwick as the senior attack standout played a role in six of the Hoyas seven goals, scoring five times with one assist.
“Coco (Stanwick) was difficult to contain,” said Coyne. “We struggled with their off-ball offense. They shoot the ball well and she converted her chances (six goals on six shots).”
The Irish started slowly and Georgetown jumped out to a 4-0 lead just 9:07 into the game. The Hoyas’ first two goals came off free-position shots by Sutton and Stanwick at 27:39 and 26:32. Stanwick’s second goal made it 3-0 at 24:01 and she then set up O’Reilly’s goal at 20:53 for the 4-0 edge.
McKinney finally got the Irish on the scoreboard with 17:21 left in the half as she beat a Hoya defender to the outside and whipped a shot past goalkeeper Maggie Koch. Stoeckert cut the lead in half just 26 seconds later when she took a feed from Lena Zentgraf and beat Koch to the stick side to make it 4-2.
Stanwick picked up her second free-position goal of the half (12:32) to make it 5-2 and would make it a four-goal lead with 3:16 left in the half with her fourth goal of the game for a 6-2 lead.
The Irish again came back to cut the lead to two goals as Carpenter (2:52) and McKinney (2:34) scored 18 seconds apart for a 6-4 lead. Stanwick then closed out the half with her fifth goal with just 31 seconds left to send the teams to intermission with Georgetown leading, 7-4.
Notre Dame got off to a fast start in the second half as Byers got her first of the night just 59 seconds into the half when she carried from behind the net and whipped a shot by Koch to cut the lead to 7-5. Instead of igniting the Irish, the goal seemed to spark Georgetown as the Hoyas ran off the next four goals in a 6:30 span.
Baschuk (27:19), Sutton, her second of the game (25:46), Trautman (23:38) and Piotrowicz with a free-position goal (20:49) built the Georgetown lead to 11-6.
“Our backs were against the wall and we had the choice to lie down or play and we stepped it up and started to compete in the second half,” said Coyne. “When we started to play aggressively we got back into the game.” ” Over seven minutes would pass before the Irish answered and again it was McKinney who got things started. She notched her third of the game at 13:41 and Byers followed with her second at 8:46 to make it 11-8.
Stanwick scored a key goal for the Hoyas at 5:32, but McKinney and Byers ran off the final three goals of the game over the final 2:58. McKinney’s fifth goal with 1:25 left made it 12-10. The Irish won the ensuing draw and raced down the field only to see Byers’s shot stopped by Koch for her 14th save of the game and Georgetown ran out the clock from there.
“The whole time, our team had faith that we could come back,” said McKinney. “When responded late in the game and fought back. We just started too late.”
The Irish out shot Georgetown in the game, 29-22 and controlled the draws by a 14-10 margin. Notre Dame goalkeeper Erin Goodman had three saves in goal for the Irish.
IRISH NOTES:
** Caitlin McKinney extended her school-record point-scoring streak to 39 games with her five-goal game. Her streak started on April 24, 2005.
** Jillian Byers three-goal game was the 13th game this season that she scored three or more goals in a game. She now has 58 goals for the season.
** 10th-ranked Georgetown was the 12th ranked team that Notre Dame has played this season. The Irish are 6-6 against ranked teams.
GAME SUMMARY
1 2 - F#12/#12 Notre Dame (11-6) 4 6 10#10/#9 Georgetown (10-6) 7 5 12
First HalfTime Team Score Goal Assist27:39 GU 0-1 * Schuyler Sutton (28) Free-position goal26:32 GU 0-2 * Coco Stanwick (53) Free-position goal24:01 GU 0-3 Coco Stanwick (54) Jordan Trautman20:53 GU 0-4 Bunny O'Reilly (21) Coco Stanwick (23)17:21 ND 1-4 * Caitlin McKinney (40) Free-position goal16:55 ND 2-4 Jane Stoeckert (21) Lena Zentgraf (21)12:32 GU 2-5 * Coco Stanwick (55) Free-position shot 3:16 GU 2-6 Coco Stanwick (56) 2:52 ND 3-6 Mary Carpenter (10) Lena Zentgraf (22) 2:34 ND 4-6 Caitlin McKinney (41) 0:31 GU 4-7 Coco Stanwick (57) Bunny O'Reilly (13)
Second HalfTime Team Score Goal Assist29:01 ND 5-7 Jillian Byers (56)27:19 GU 5-8 Brittany Baschuk (28)25:46 GU 5-9 Schuyler Sutton (29)23:38 GU 5-10 Jordan Trautman (2)20:49 GU 5-11 * Patty Piotrowicz (12) Free-position goal13:41 ND 6-11 Caitlin McKinney (42) 8:46 ND 7-11 Jillian Byers (57) 5:32 GU 7-12 Coco Stanwick (58) 2:58 ND 8-12 Caitlin McKinney (43) Jane Stoeckert (15) 1:58 ND 9-12 * Jillian Byers (58) Free-position goal 1:25 ND 10-12 Caitlin McKinney (44)
Goalkeepers:Notre Dame: (Erin Goodman: 60:00 min; 12 goals, 3 saves)Georgetown: (Maggie Koch: 60:00 min; 10 goals, 14 saves)
Total Shots: ND - 29; GU - 22;Groundballs: ND - 12; GU - 7Draw Controls: ND - 14; GU - 10Caused Turnovers: ND - 7; GU - 4