When the Inside Lacrosse poll came out before the 2008 season, the Hoyas found themselves ranked 14th in the nation, but something didn’t seem right despite the lofty ranking.
“We’re the underdogs this year,” says Patty Piotrowicz, a senior midfielder and one of the three team captains.
“No one’s expecting anything out of us,” adds sophomore midfielder Ashby Kaestner.
The question: How is it that the 14th-best team in the nation can be underdogs?
There are two reasons, the first lying in the nature of women’s college lacrosse. Although lacrosse is among the fastest growing sports in America, it has yet to become a national game. There are only 84 Division I women’s lacrosse programs, less than one-fourth the number of D-I women’s basketball teams. The majority of quality programs hail from the East Coast, and young talent from lacrosse hotbeds like upstate New York and Baltimore flow to the same schools year after year. In the past 16 years, only four teams — Virginia Maryland, Princeton and Northwestern — have won NCAA titles.
Simply put, there are fewer teams and even fewer elite teams, so the top programs are forced to play other highly touted squads instead of filling their schedules with cupcake opponents. Take Georgetown’s schedule for example — of the 16 games, seven are against teams ranked in the top 10.
The second reason that lacrosse pundits have tabbed the Hoyas for a “down year,” despite the seemingly lofty ranking, can be found within the recent history of Georgetown lacrosse. Over the past 14 seasons, the Hoyas have compiled an astounding 172-71 record and earned a reputation as one of the best teams in the land, an impressive moniker that may prove difficult to maintain this year.
A TRADITION OF WINNING
The women’s lacrosse program at Georgetown was officially founded in 1977, but it wasn’t until 1994 that it really took off. The year marked the first time the Hoyas won more than 10 games, and it started the team’s current streak of 14-straight winning seasons. Four years later in 1998, Georgetown made its first of nine-straight NCAA tournament appearances.
In 2001 and 2002, the Hoyas made it to the finals, losing in the championship game to Maryland and then Princeton. But that doesn’t mean Georgetown has not seen any hardware. Since the inception of the Big East conference in 2001, the Hoyas have compiled a ridiculous 38-1 regular-season record on their way to winning all seven regular season titles.
The individual honors that Georgetown players have picked up could fill several trophy rooms. Thirty-eight all-Americans, seven national players of the year, three Tewaaraton Trophy finalists — the list goes on. In her senior year, Erin Elbe (COL ’02) took home the Tewaaraton, lacrosse’s answer to the Heisman.
The Stanwick sisters — Sheehan (MSB ’01), Wick (MSB ’03) and Coco (SFS ’07) — have been synonymous with Georgetown’s success over the past decade. The three were named first-team all-Americans a combined six times, and they are all in the top four of points and goals scored in Georgetown history.
But last year the Hoyas showed a chink in their armor.
Led by Coco Stanwick and a slew of powerful seniors, the Hoyas began the season ranked fourth in the nation and brimming with high expectations. Senior goalkeeper Maggie Koch (COL ’07) was fresh off winning national goalkeeper of the year honors in her junior season, and senior defender Chloe Asselin (COL ’07) was two years removed from being named a third-team all-American performer.
Georgetown lost its opener against then-No. 12 James Madison and fell later in the season at then-No. 11 Notre Dame, snapping a 37-game conference winning streak. After losing to then-No.7 Syracuse in the inaugural Big East championship game, Georgetown was left out of its first NCAA tournament in 10 years.
Though the Hoyas lost their Big East winning and NCAA appearance streaks, the most glaring hole from last year will be the one left by the seven starters who graduated.
“Right now we’re looking for that person to step up,” Head Coach Ricky Fried says. “Everybody knows Coco’s name and Maggie’s name and Chloe’s name, so we’ve had some people graduate that have been around and playing a lot.”
There are question marks up and down the field, from goalkeeper — sophomore Caitlin Formby played just five and a half minutes last year — to the attack — Georgetown lost 62 percent of its offense from last season. With their leaders in almost every statistical category gone, the Hoyas may need to turn to a different model for a successful season.
YOUNG AND ATHLETIC
This year’s team will deviate from the usual Georgetown look — that of technical “finesse,” in the words of junior defender Jordan Trautman — and feature a new look of raw speed and athleticism.
“We’re more athletic and scrappy this year,” elaborates Trautman. “We want to be a relentless, go-after-you kind of team. Everybody’s looking forward to it.”
Fried gave detailed implications of the Hoyas’ new style of play on the pitch. “We’re going to be much more up and down the field,” he says. “We want to push the tempo and push the ball up and down the field, be a little bit less methodical. On the defensive end, put a lot more pressure on our opponents because we feel like we can get up and down and start some of our offensive punch from the back. There’s a lot of athleticism on the defensive end.”
This new attack-minded and athletic approach is synchronized with the arrival of 11 freshmen on the team. The Hoyas, unequivocally a young team, face the challenge of integrating several new pieces into a single, smooth-sailing unit. The preseason training proved just that.
“Preseason flew by,” admits Fried. “Four weeks went by very quickly. You don’t know if you have enough time, and when you’re trying to get more information in and teaching more people to do what you need them to do, it goes by faster than you’d like it to.”
Yet, Fried doesn’t doubt the abilities of his newest class.
“The energy level has been very good, the effort has been very consistent on a day-to-day basis, we just need now to turn it around and have the play be consistent because we are very young,” he says.
Some of the freshmen that Fried says are worth keeping an eye out for are Jacqueline Giles and Jordy Kirr on attack, both of whom played in the 2007 Under Armour all-American game; Mary Beth Brophy and Logan McCraw look to make their mark on the midfield; Jenny Wolock comes in on defense, and Lauren Thomas will back up starter Caitlin Formby in goal. Some of the freshmen are already making an impact on the team — Giles started in the season opener against George Washington, taking two shots, one on goal, while Thomas played an instrumental role in the win when she made two crucial saves in the last 32 seconds of the game.
It was sophomore midfielder Ashby Kaestner, however, who stole the show last Wednesday against GW, adding six goals to her name in an action-packed game. Then, on Saturday, Kaestner added five more goals in a blowout defeat of Loyola of Maryland. She is one of the key returning players who has stepped her game up to fill the big shoes left by the graduating class of 2007. Another sophomore who has stepped into the spotlight is attacker Molly Ford, who contributed a hat trick and three assists to the Hoyas’ victory.
Coaches and players alike have praised the way that Kaestner and Ford have taken it upon themselves to set an example to their younger teammates.
“Ashby Kaestner has taken on a leadership role,” Trautman says. “And Molly Ford has stepped up, and there’s definitely more urgency in her play.”
Trautman and Piotrowicz were named on the preseason all-Big East selection as a testament to their skill on the field. They remain, however, with both feet on the ground.
“It’s nice to be acknowledged, but it’s preseason, and it doesn’t that mean much because you have to earn it for the rest of the season,” Piotrowicz said.
Both Trautman and Piotrowicz talked less about themselves and more about the other upperclassmen who looked to play instrumental roles in this season for the Hoyas.
Among them were the likes of sophomore goalkeeper Caitlin Formby, junior attacker Bunny O’Reilly and senior attacker Zan Morley.
“Georgetown’s women’s lacrosse has always been known as the really skilled, smart team,” Fried says. “We obviously don’t want to take that aspect out of it, but we want to be able to go after people — push the ball on the offensive end and make people react to us as opposed to us always slowing the tempo down.”
STILL GREAT EXPECTATIONS
Despite winning the regular season title in all seven years of the Big East existence, Georgetown was picked by coaches to finish third in the six-team conference in January.
“I like being underestimated, so that way people are surprised by your play,” Trautman says. “We just have to prove that we belong at the top of the Big East.”
Ahead of the Hoyas are No. 5 Syracuse and No. 9 Notre Dame. Syracuse will be led by junior midfielder Katie Rowan, who notched 59 goals and 27 assists last season. The Orange are coached by first-year head man Gary Gait, a Syracuse alumnus and arguably one of the best lacrosse players of all-time. Notre Dame looks to have an explosive offense with the return attackers Jillian Byers and Caitlin McKinney, who combined for 102 goals last season.
“Clearly the Big East is our priority with Syracuse and Notre Dame,” Fried says. “Expectation one is to win the Big East, which would allow us to get to the NCAAs. The expectations remain the same for us regardless of how young we are. We expect to be in the mix at the end of the season.”
To make the 16-team NCAA tournament, the Hoyas would have to win the Big East tournament or earn one of eight at-large bids.
The lowered expectations from outsiders come as breath of fresh air to some Hoyas.
“The feeling is that we’re going to have to work for everything. We’re not going to be giving anything,” Piotrowicz says. “It’s nice though — no expectations, just go out there and play.”
— Hoya Staff Writer Fiore Mastroianni contributed to this report.