Marquette women’s lacrosse ended its regular season with a 14-12 upset over No. 24 Georgetown University Saturday afternoon, defeating the Hoyas for the first time in program history.
“I can’t really put it into words. It’s an amazing feeling,” senior midfielder Grace Gabriel said. “We’ve been on this journey trying to beat them all four years and to finally get this win is an incredible feeling. … We’ve never beaten a ranked opponent either.”
From the first whistle, it seemed as though Georgetown was going to control the game. At the start, the Hoyas dominated draw controls, outshot the Golden Eagles and converted on free-position shots.
Graduate student Charlotte McGuire was the first Golden Eagle to score after Georgetown jumped to a quick 2-0 start. McGuire came back to Marquette for her red shirt senior season.
“I came back (to Marquette for my redshirt senior season) for a reason,” McGuire said. “The reason I play lacrosse is games like these. … Keeping that in the back of my head the whole game really made me give it my all every second.”
Georgetown used a 4-0 run to take a 7-3 lead, but a pair of Marquette goals brought the Golden Eagles within two goals of the Hoyas at halftime. That included a McGuire goal with 54 seconds remaining.
“When (Jocelyn Miller) was running up the field, I just knew I had to be open for her and get it from her,” McGuire said. “I saw what was open and just took it. That definitely brought momentum into the second half.”
It only took the Hoyas 33 seconds to score in the second half on Georgetown attacker Taylor Gebhardt’s third goal of the day. Georgetown attacker Michaela Bruno then found the back of the net to give GU a 9-5 lead.
Right when Georgetown found a comfortable lead, Marquette fought back with a 4-0 run, which included one goal from Megan Menzuber, two from Gabriel and one from freshman attacker Shea Garcia. Suddenly the game was tied 9-9.
Later in the half, Georgetown grabbed an 11-9 advantage, but Gabriel spun around her defenders to score at the 12:36 mark and bring her team within one.
Despite the efforts of the Hoyas’ Morgan Ryan to put Georgetown up 12-11, Gabriel ended the game with two goals to seal Marquette’s victory.
Bruno led the Hoyas with four goals on 10 shots. Georgetown midfielder Francesca Whitehurst had a game-high eight draw controls and picked up a team-high three ground balls. Georgetown finished with a 16-12 advantage in draw controls and completed three of its eight free-possession shots. However, the team committed 22 fouls.
“I said at halftime, the more aggressive team will win this game and that’s offensively and defensively,” Marquette head coach Meredith Black said. “We tried to up our aggressiveness to match it and to maybe beat it to win the game.”
For the Golden Eagles, the seniors filled the scoring column. Gabriel finished with a game-high five goals on 14 shots. McGuire added four of her own scores, and Marquette attacker Cate Soccodato added one as well.
“I didn’t think I was contributing that much in the first half,” Gabriel said. “To get those goals in the second half kind of propelled my game a little bit.”
In the goal, junior Julianna Horning totaled 18 saves with a 60 percent save percentage, playing all 60 minutes.
The Golden Eagles are the No. 2 seed in the BIG EAST Tournament and play Thursday in the BIG EAST semifinals against Georgetown again at Valley Fields.
“We’re celebrating the win until midnight tonight,” McGuire said. “But then tomorrow it’s back dialing in for facing them on Thursday. They’re a good team (and) we have to respect that, but we also want to beat them again. We’ve never played them twice in a season.”
