Oct. 21, 2009

Box Score
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WASHINGTON - The Georgetown University men's soccer squad lost an overtime heartbreaker to the University of Notre Dame Fighting Irish (8-6-1, 6-3 BIG EAST) Wednesday afternoon at North Kehoe Field. The Hoyas played an outstanding game but just couldn't find the back of the net coming away with the tough 2-1 decision. With the loss, the Fighting Irish move ahead of the Hoyas in the BIG EAST standings and Georgetown drops to 8-6-1 overall and 5-4 in league play.

"To be honest, no disrespect to Notre Dame, I think we outplayed them for the first 90 minutes," said Georgetown Head Coach Brian Wiese. "I thought we played well today, the positive is that it was a night and day performance from Marquette. I think Marquette was a low point for us, but today we played well and we deserved to win."

Georgetown controlled the pace of the game for the entire 90 minutes of regulation. From the opening whistle, the Hoyas were firing forcing Notre Dame keeper Andrew Quinn to make some big saves. In the opening half, Jose Colchao (Fairfax, Va./Lake Braddock Secondary School) had a near-goal redirecting a shot into the net but Quinn made a miraculous save to keep the score tied.

The Hoyas continued to push with five shots on goal in the first half but each resulted in a save from Quinn. It was Notre Dame that got on the board first, however, when Brendan King took a free kick and Michael Thomas managed to head it in from the middle of the box to make it 1-0.

The Blue & Gray went into the break trailing by a goal but had outshot the Irish 7-4 and taken four corner kicks. On the defensive end, Quinn had five saves in the first half while Georgetown keeper Matthew Brutto (Warrington, Pa./Central Bucks South) faced only one shot on goal.

To open the second half, Georgetown came out ready as Colacho once again sparked the offense. The junior forward had a brilliant header in the middle of the box less than five minutes in which Quinn got a fingertip on and, with help from the crossbar, kept it out of the net.

Just minutes later, the Hoyas found the equalizer from midfielder Scott Larrabee (Palos Verdes Estates, Calif./Loyola High School of Los Angeles) who headed it past Quinn off of a deep serve from freshman Jimmy Nealis (Massapequa, N.Y./Massapequa). Nealis had received the ball from senior captain Mark Zeman (Wester Springs, Ill./Lyons Township) who threw it in. It marked Larrabee's first goal of the season.

From that point on, the momentum fully shifted and it looked to be Georgetown's game as the Hoyas maintained possession for almost the entire second half. With chance after chance just missing for the Blue & Gray, Notre Dame had its best opportunity of the half in the 77th minute but Brutto made an almost-impossible save. Unfortunately on the play, the junior was injured and visibly shaken as the game remained tied at the final whistle forcing the extra period.

Sophomore keeper Erik Garciamendez (Fairview, Texas/John Paul II) took over in net for the injured Brutto to open overtime. This marked the second time in three games that the Hoyas were forced to switch keepers mid-game due to injury. Junior Mark Wilber (Tijeras, N.M./Albuquerque Academy) was still out of commission because of an injury suffered against Maryland last week.

Notre Dame took over the pace as the extra period began and the Georgetown coaching staff began shuffling players in and out because of injury or fatigue. GU had opportunities but played a majority of the period on defense as the back four continued to limit Irish shots on goal. Unfortunately, in the 97th minute it was too much as Bilal Duckett shot from 25-yards out on the right side and despite Garciamendez's best effort managed to skim off of his fingertips into the goal as the Hoyas fell 2-1.

"It's a difficult situation for a goalkeeper to go in for overtime when you're tied because one mistake and you walk off," said Wiese. "He'll (Garciamendez) bounce back from this but I know he is taking it personally."

Georgetown outshot Notre Dame 16-12 and took seven corner kicks to UND's four. Brutto had one save for the game and Quinn finished with seven.

"For us, we'll have to work very hard to get this win back," said Wiese. "We'll have to go to West Virginia and see if we can get a result."

The Hoyas will battle another Blue Division rival on Saturday as Georgetown travels to West Virginia to take on the Mountaineers at 7:30 p.m. Live stats and a webcast will be available at www.GUHoyas.com.