WASHINGTON – The Georgetown University women's soccer team fell to the West Virginia Mountaineers 2-0 on Saturday afternoon in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. West Virginia scored both of its goals in the first half at Shaw Field. A late effort by the Hoyas was not enough to advance to the next round of the tournament. With the loss, GU finishes the season 13-5-3 while WVU moves on to 11-7-2.
COACH NOLAN ON THE MATCH
It's obviously a very disappointing end to our season, in particular for our senior class who have been a fantastic group of young people to work with and I know they're heartbroken at the outcome of today. We always want to go one more game, just one more game to play. The game itself was very similar to our BIG EAST Final last week. Going against the wind in the first half, we made a bad mistake during West Virginia's first goal and we got punished for it. To be honest, we gave away that second goal, which, being down 2-0 at the half, is a deep hole that we dug ourselves. I've got to give our team credit though because we came back in the second half. We created four, five, maybe six chances and came up against their goalkeeper who made three outstanding saves that just one of those would have brought us back into the game.
It's a tough pill to swallow for the team, especially for the seniors. They have to think back to the last four years and the careers that they had at Georgetown. If making the NCAA Tournament every year and getting to the BIG EAST Final every year is failure, then that is an incredibly high-level failure.
HOW IT HAPPENED
- West Virginia took an early 1-0 lead in the 13th minute. The Mountaineers' Alina Stahl attempted a shot, but GU keeper Anna Leat managed to block it, which deflected back to Stahl who then made it 1-0 while Leat was down.
- Amanda Carolan had Georgetown's best chance in the first half with a shot from 10 yards out, but her chance was blocked by West Virginia keeper Rylee Foster.
- The Mountaineers took a 2-0 lead just before entering the half with a shot from Stahl in the center of the six-yard box.
- The Blue & Gray created multiple opportunities in the second half to try and get on the board but were unlucky with getting it past Foster in the net. Sophie Fox and Paula Germino-Watnick had the best chances for GU in the final 10 minutes of play, but Foster had a hand on each shot.
OF NOTE
- Georgetown took more than double the shots that West Virginia took, outshooting the Mountaineers 19-8. GU also took 10 corners to WVU's one.
- Leat made three saves throughout 90 minutes of play while Foster tallied seven.
- Kelly Ann Livingstone led both teams with four shots on the day.