The American University lacrosse team (1-1) lost their season opener to the Georgetown Hoyas (1-0) on Feb. 7 by a final score of 12-5.
American entered their opening season contest against their cross-town rivals, the Georgetown Hoyas, ranked No. 6 in the Patriot League preseason poll. The Eagles also hope to return to the Patriot League tournament after missing out on it the past two years.
American started the game off in front and pressured Georgetown’s defense right away as senior attacker Maddy Spratt won the opening draw. The Eagles scored their first goal of the season with 13:26 left in the first quarter, credited to senior attacker Becca Frank with an assist by senior attacker Alyssa Apuzzo.
After a Hoyas foul, American rapidly moved down the field, pinning Georgetown in. Spratt then scored a goal of her own, giving American a two-goal lead. Frank got the assist to put the Eagles up 2-0 with about nine minutes left in the quarter.
Less than two minutes later, Spratt added her second goal of the game, assisted by freshman attacker Madison Barber. Georgetown got on the board with four minutes left to go, cutting the Eagles’ lead to two goals. Senior goalkeeper Caleigh Forti made three huge saves towards the end of the quarter to keep Georgetown out.
The second quarter took a little while to get going. Each team traded fouls and turnovers for just about the first third of the quarter before Georgetown scored to cut the lead to one. Just 30 seconds later, Georgetown’s Rileigh Meyer equalized for the home team.
As American’s offense started to stall, Georgetown continued to force Forti into making more saves to prevent the Eagles from falling behind. American found their answer through junior midfielder Kellie Linehan, assisted by fellow junior midfielder Reagan Murdoch. Georgetown thought they had a last-second equalizer at the end of the half, but failed to get it off in time.
“Anytime you can start strong it helps with momentum. The offense did a great job of working the clock in our favor. We worked hard this preseason so I was proud of how the first and second quarters went,” American head coach Lindsay Teeters said in an email to The Eagle.
The back-and-forth action continued into the second half, as Georgetown got their equalizer less than a minute into the second half, tying the score at four goals apiece. Less than a minute later, the Eagles responded, pulling ahead through another Linehan-Murdoch linkup, making it 5-4.
That's when the momentum suddenly swung heavily in favor of the hosts as they once again responded to even the score up at 5-5. This became part of a 8-0 run in the second half for the Hoyas that American couldn’t deal with.
Once the Hoyas took the 6-5 lead with less than five minutes to go in the third, the Eagles couldn’t stop them.
“We had too many turnovers in the third quarter and gave their offense more chances than I would have liked,” Teeters said.
Despite the loss, there were some good things to note for the Eagles. One of those was the performance of Forti, who finished with 15 saves, some of those keeping the Eagles in the game.
Teeters also praised the strong performance from Forti. “Forti had a great game,” she said. “The goalie position is the hardest position on the field and she’s been working hard in the off-season to focus on doing her job and realizing goals are going to happen and not letting it affect her for the rest of the game. Georgetown is a good team with some prolific scorers and I’m really proud of how she played.”
Frank, Linehan and Spratt led the team with 2 points each, Linehan and Spratt each scoring twice and Frank finishing with 1 goal and 1 assist. Forti finished with 15 saves on the 27 shots she faced.
American defeated the Howard Bison (0-2) in their home opener on Jacobs Field on Feb. 11 by a score of 18-7. The Eagles will next play a series of away games at Loyola University Maryland, George Mason University and University of Maryland Baltimore County before returning home to play George Washington University on Feb. 26.
This article was edited by Connor Sturniolo, Penelope Jennings and Abigail Turner. Copy editing done by Luna Jinks.
