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Marquette faces off with Georgetown in the first ever lacrosse game between the two schools tomorrow at 11am Central. Conveniently, Washington, D.C., is currently loaded with Marquette fans for tonight's basketball game, so there's no reason why everyone can't head over to Harbin Field to cheer on the Golden Eagles. Even more conveniently, Marquette's arranged for a shuttle to take everyone over to the game. BUT: You have to RSVP with MU Director of Development Joe True. Go here, look at the map and the schedule, and call or email Joe if you need or want a ride. Georgetown draws about 1100 fans per game, so you might want to buy tickets ahead of time. You can get them online here or call the ticket office at 202-687-4692.
Anyway.
This is Marquette's first game since a 12-7 loss to Saint Joseph's back on March 16th. Head coach Joe Amplo wasn't pleased with his team's effort in that game, and he's had 2 weeks to grab their attention heading in to this one. Conor Gately is Marquette's scoring leader with 17 points, and he's gotten there by helping others score. Gately has 12 assists on the season to make up the majority of his points. Bryan Badolato is tied for second on the team in points, but he's the opposite of Gately, using 12 goals to get to 14 points. Badolato's tied with Tyler Melnyk, who has split his points right down the middle with 7 in both the goals and assists column.
If there's one thing Marquette needs to work on, it's coming out of the locker room strong. MU has yet to reach 10 first quarter goals on this season, and on top of that, they're getting outshot both overall (59-31) and in only shots that qualify as on goal (38-14). Are they getting outshot and outscored in other periods? Sure. But starting out in a hole isn't any good.
Georgetown comes in off two straight losses, but - and this is an important but - both of those losses came to ranked teams. They fell 13-8 to #9 Loyola (MD) and 19-7 to #12 Duke. Sophomore Reilly O'Connor is the leading scorer, racking up 25 points on 12 goals and 13 assists. Those are both team highs, although he shares the goals lead with junior Jeff Fountain. Fountain also has the second most assists at 7. Sophomore Jake Haley has been getting the majority of the time in net for the Hoyas, posting a goals against average of 12.35 and a save percentage of 46.2%.