1. Mission Accomplished: Excepting an injury to Duval Paul, Georgetown got exactly what it wanted out of the game: first a win; second, game time experience for a lot of players; and three, momentum.
Georgetown needed all three. The Davidson opener was flat on many levels and a bounce back was in order. The Hoyas were certainly favored over Marist in the Red Foxes' first game of the season, but Marist seemed to fold its tents following the second quarter. This is often a byproduct of a game one effort--the contrast with pre-season practice will take a toll on a team when it falls behind. The Marist running game has a long year ahead of it and the caliber of its remaining non-conference games (Cornell, Dartmouth) will be another tough test on Jim Parady and the Marist coaching staff.
Sgarlata and Parady go way back. Parady was in his third season when the Red Foxes joined the MAAC in 1994--they won the conference title that first season. He helped guide the program to be the last survivor from the sunken ship that was the MAAC Football League, a feat that the likes of Fairfield, Iona, St. Peter's, Siena, Canisius, and St. John's were not able to do. But at 138-147, with one Pioneer title since joining that league, it won't be an easy season for him of the Foxes take a sixth consecutive season under .500.
Does Georgetown gain any momentum from this win? A little, perhaps. No one wanted to go into week 3 at 0-2, but getting Joe Brunell some game time experience that he will need and rotating the defense through a variety of options will prove vital as October nears. Marist will never be a marquee opponent for a program that doesn't get on the marquee, but it was a good early test. Georgetown excelled in all there areas of the game and a fourth which can be jsut as important: expectations.
We don't know how good or bad Marist will turn out, but maybe Davidson is a whole lot better than its Pioneer brethren would give them credit for.
2. Stadium Coverage (without the stadium): An A+ to the new high definition broadcast of Saturday's game. For a tight budget, Stadium/PL Network continues to hit the ball out of the park, to mix sports metaphors. Compared to some ESPN3 broadcasts where it sounds like the announcers are calling the game from a studio in Bristol, CT, the PL Network crew is connected to the game and makes the best out of what Cooper Field gives them, which isn't very much.
Also, to its credit: no wisecracks about the Cooper press box, arguably the worst in Division I. Where the press is usually afforded a sandwich tray and snacks in the areas surrounding the press box, there are no such amenities this year st Georgetown. Next year? You would think but...wait a minute, we've been down this road before...
3. Upon Further Review: Saturday's official attendance took a nosedive this week. The original count for the game was 3,336, which would not only have made it the best attended home opener since 2005, it would have been the second largest crowd in the history of 2,500 seat Cooper Field (fka Multi Sport Field).
Except at least half the seating no longer exists, having been razed in 2017 for the
The revised total is now 1,943.
