The Villanova men’s soccer team was unable to convert its first Big East Tournament home game into a win, as they fell 4-3 to Georgetown in penalty kicks. The game was knotted at 1-1 at the end of regulation, but the Hoyas were able to put the game away in the extra period.

Villanova had plenty of chances out of the gate, as Brett Stassfurth and Jonathan Lopuski were each inches away from goals in the first five minutes of the game. The pressure from Villanova’s offense kept the game very one-sided in the first 15 minutes.

Georgetown began to counter-attack, however, and the both sides were battling equally going into halftime.

Early in the second half, a Georgetown player who appeared to be in an offside position received a wide-open pass and made the game 1-0 as there was no resulting call from the referee.

The Wildcats fought back hard, and leading scorer Danny DeMasters netted the equalizer with about 10 minutes to play.

Both overtimes remained scoreless and the game headed to a shootout with the score tied 1-1. Felix Vincent, Stassfurth and Pat Gallagher converted opportunities for the ‘Cats in the shootout, but it was not enough as Georgetown edged them 4-3.

Earlier in the week, the Wildcats tied 18th ranked Penn State as Gallagher scored in his second consecutive game. The game marked yet another time that Villanova allowed an opponent to come back late in the game.

The season was successful in that the ‘Cats produced their best Big East season ever and hosted their first ever tournament game.

“We really wanted to make the NCAA tournament, but it was really neat that we still had such a productive year anyway,” senior Chris Blatz said.

Villanova will most likely not receive an invitation to the NCAA tournament as they finished 7-6-5 and 5-3-2 in the Big East. They were ranked as high as 21st in the country after a 5-0-1 start to the year