'No Better Place Than Georgetown' for James Ball, Who Leads Hoyas Past Penn

PHILADELPHIA — James Ball has been a welcome addition at the faceoff X for Georgetown.

The graduate student won 17 of 23 faceoffs to key the Hoyas’ 12-9 win at Penn on Saturday at historic — and blustery — Franklin Field that started with temperatures in the 30s. It’s the first win of the season for Georgetown (1-2), which faced the prospect of a second straight 0-3 start before heading to defending NCAA champion Notre Dame next weekend.

“Just picking up the first one is always huge, gaining momentum early on in the season,” said Ball, who is now 36-for-56 (64 percent). “Everybody did their job. We needed all 50 guys, and everybody stepped up and did their job.”

Graham Bundy Jr. scored four goals with two assists to pace the offense. Aidan Carroll had a hat trick and an assist, and TJ Haley equaled his career high with five assists. Jordan Wray scored twice. Georgetown outshot Penn 25-12 in the first half and 40-36 overall.

“We have weapons on offense, so my job is just simply to get them the ball,” Ball said. “And if I do that, they’re going to finish.”

Freshman goalie Anderson Moore backed a solid defensive effort with 12 saves, including five in the fourth quarter to preserve the 5-0 lead that Georgetown built from the outset. Penn (0-1) never got closer than two goals and looked just like a team playing its season opener.

“I would love to use that as an excuse, but they just outplayed us,” said Penn coach Mike Murphy, whose Quakers host Albany on Tuesday. “They punched us in the mouth early on. The rest of the game was competitive, but you can’t dig yourself a 5-0 hole against a playoff team like that and expect to be able to win.”

Penn had split its last two meetings with Georgetown, winning 9-7 to start last year and losing 10-8 in 2022 at Franklin Field. Penn was 7-6 last season and lost in the first round of the Ivy League tournament. The Quakers are adjusting to life without midfielder Sam Handley, who was their top scorer a year ago and graduated to the Premier Lacrosse League.

Tynan Walsh scored three goals and Leo Hoffman scored twice. Gabe Furey had a pair of assists, and Luke DiNola and James Shipley had two points each. Emmet Carroll, recently added to the Tewaaraton Award Watch List, made 11 saves. Both of Hoffman‘s goals came in the fourth quarter, as it took Penn’s top recruit some time to get going. The speedy freshman midfielder missed the fall due to injury.

The Quakers also missed their graduate students in the fall. “We’re further behind where we would normally be right now,” Murphy said. “But if we’d had everybody all fall, I’m not sure we beat Georgetown on this day just because of how well they played. They were coming in here with a desire and a hunger to win having lost two games.”

Georgetown rode the efforts of Ball to a fast start while the Quakers were adjusting to early injuries to their own FOGOs. Ball won his first eight faceoffs while Penn lost its top two faceoff men — Chris Arceri and Virginia transfer Mac Eldridge — in the first quarter to injuries. Ball was dominant, as he helped Georgetown to a 15-3 edge in faceoffs through three quarters.

“James Ball was great,” Georgetown coach Kevin Warne said. “This is an easy game. You have more possessions, you know the field tilts your way just being able to play offense and being able to get on runs.”

After the Hoyas graduated James Reilly, they picked up Ball. Ball won 26 of 45 faceoffs in limited time for a Yale team that reached the NCAA quarterfinals in 2022. Then he took 2023 off while training on his own and finishing his degree from the Ivy institution in just three years. It wasn’t his plan to graduate early, but he’s now in Georgetown’s business school.

“I’m glad he’s here,” Warne said.

Though Ball was plenty familiar with Penn from his Ivy League days, he had never taken a faceoff against the Quakers until Saturday. Once the second-ranked faceoff specialist by Inside Lacrosse, Ball is quite literally having a ball since joining the Hoyas.

“The coaches and my new players have been extremely accepting,” Ball said. “They’re awesome. They brought me in, and they’re letting me do my thing. I can’t be more grateful for this opportunity that Coach and the staff have given me. There’s no better place than Georgetown.”

Ball jumpstarted the Hoyas attack by providing possession after possession. Georgetown got on the scoreboard first when Carroll rolled around his defender and shot low from the doorstep. Wray followed off a great feed from Haley. Penn called timeout after Jake Waldman scored on the second assist by Haley. Wray pumped in his second goal of the game midway through the quarter, and Patrick Crogan scored three minutes later off Haley’s third helper for a 5-0 lead.

“He’s grown exponentially from his freshman year in so many facets,” Warne said of Haley. “Even just leadership wise. But he’s just a calming presence below the goal and gets our guys organized and generally makes really good decisions. And that’s what we needed in a game that had a lot of crazy moments.”

Penn’s first goal came from DiNola. Robert Schain and Walsh followed over the next five minutes to trim the Georgetown lead to 5-3. Bundy Jr. found Carroll to fend off that rally, and Bundy Jr. scored two of the game’s next three goals to give the Hoyas an 8-4 lead at halftime. Bundy Jr., Carroll and Wray are all tied for the team lead with seven goals this season as Georgetown’s balanced offense has started to get in sync.

“We knew it would take some time and take some progression, whether it’s from our older guys stepping up in big ways or our younger guys stepping up to play some minutes for us,” Bundy Jr. said.

The 5-0 start was a huge plus for a team that had lost its first two games. It gave Georgetown momentum from the beginning.

“You’re able to have that comfort factor, not that you’re holding the ball, but you can be a little more selective,” Warne said. “You can be a little more free, and your guys gain confidence. I think that was a big thing for us.”

Warne was pleased with the way the Hoyas shot to score rather than just shooting to shoot. Overall, he felt like the offense played smarter, something Bundy Jr. attributed to patience.

“When we shoot balls earlier in the shot clock, they tend to be worse takes and we tend to not play as much offense,” Bundy Jr. said. “So just keeping the ball and saving the possession for the best shot is what led us to a successful game for our offense.”

Penn came out of the locker room energized and got goals from Ben Smith and Walsh to make it 8-6 before Bundy Jr. and Carroll again responded for the Hoyas with extra-man goals. Alexander Vardaro’s goal gave Georgetown an 11-6 lead to match its largest of the game barely a minute into the fourth quarter before Penn made it exciting with three goals in the next three minutes. But the Georgetown defense forced a turnover and then its third shot clock violation of the game, and Penn came no closer before Bundy Jr. cemented the win with his final goal.

“Coming out with a good feeling, it’s definitely big for everyone,” Bundy Jr. said. “We’re trending in the right direction these last three weeks.”

Penn would like to see the same sort of progression that the Hoyas have gotten with two home games against Albany and Delaware this week before its arduous schedule sends the Quakers on the road to Duke and North Carolina. Georgetown leaves Philadelphia a more confident team after winning their first game before they head to South Bend for another big showdown next week.

“We live in a world where sometimes the guys just got to see their hard work pay off,” Warne said. “And I think that’s part of it. But I thought today we handled our huddles, we handled some really stressful situations much better than last week, and that’s been the theme this year is just get better every week. We have to keep it really simple with this group until the guys feel more comfortable and we can expand the tempo or the way we play.”