Pride senior Mike Malave tied his career-high with five goals but the Hoyas 5-1 run in the second half was too much to overcome as Hofstra fell to Georgetown, 13-11 in a non-conference game at Multi-Sport Field Saturday afternoon.
Hofstra slipped to 1-3 this season while the Hoyas, who got their first win of the season for Hofstra alum Kevin Warne, are now 1-2 in 2015.
Malave, who recorded a career-high with seven points in the game, equaled his five-goal performance at Massachusetts last season to lead the Pride. Junior Sam Llinares added two goals and three assists and sophomore Brier Davis tallied his second hat-trick of the year with three goals. Senior goalie Chris Selva recorded a season-high 15 saves including nine in the second half.
Georgetown was led by senior Bo Stafford with two goals and three assists while classmate Reilly O’Connor added three goals and one assist. Freshman Stephen Quinzi tallied three goals while classmate Craig Berge chipped in with three assists. For the second straight Saturday, the Pride ran into a hot goalie who made 15 saves or more as freshman Nick Marrocco stopped 17 shots in the Hoyas cage.
The Hoyas jumped on the Pride early, scoring four unanswered goals in the first 9:19. Senior Reilly O’Connor opened the scoring 3:08 into the period off a pass from senior Bo Stafford. Freshman Stephen Quinzi made it 2-0 just 2:30 later on an unassisted tally. Less than two minutes later, O’Connor and Stafford hooked up again with O’Connor getting his second of the contest. Sophomore Peter Conley then fired a bullet past Pride goalie Chris Selva from 11 yards out for a 4-0 lead with5:42 to play in the first quarter.
But Hofstra came roaring back, scoring five of the next six goals to tie the game at 5-5 midway through the second quarter. Davis put the Pride on the board with a man-up goal off a pass from Malave less than a minute later. After Stafford scored a man-up goal with 3:51 to play in the quarter for a 5-1 lead, the Pride got their offense in gear.
Malave cut the deficit to three just 1:10 before the end of the period off a pass from freshman Brendan Kavanagh. Davis opened the second quarter with his second of the game off a pass to the crease by Malave. Just five seconds later and right off the face-off, Llinares took a pass from sophomore Kris Clarke and tallied his 11th of the season. Malave then tied the contest at 5-5, from Llinares, on a bullet from 15 yards out with 7:36 to play in the half. But Quinzi and O’Connor each tallied man-up goals in the final 3:25 to give the Hoyas a 7-5 lead at halftime.
The Pride came out in the third and scored two of the first three goals as both Malave and Davis each tallied their third of the contest around a Joe Bucci goal to close to 8-7 with 8;55 to play in the third. But like last week at Princeton, the Hoyas went on a 5-1 run, behind five different scorers, to take a 13-8 lead with 5:58 to play in regulation following Stafford’s second of the game.
Hofstra got a goal back 14 seconds later as Llinares fed Malave to close to 13-9. The two Pride players hooked up again on the man-up with 1:20 to play before Llinares scored on a great individual effort, that drew a penalty, with 38 seconds to play, to close to 13-11. But Hofstra wasn’t able to do anything on the man-up as the Hoyas ran out the clock.
Georgetown outshot Hofstra, 46-37 and picked up 43 ground balls to the Pride’s 32.
Hofstra returns to action on Saturday, March 7 when the Pride travel to Columbus, Ohio to face the Buckeyes of Ohio State at 1 p.m.
