Blog from Todd Carton
Some nights when you’re the best team in the country, you don’t have to play your best game to win – even when the opponent is the 18th ranked team. This was the case for Maryland’s women’s lacrosse team Wednesday night. The Terps left their ‘A’ game at the Field Hockey and Lacrosse Complex in College Park but put together two major runs and managed to leave Klockner Stadium in Charlottesville with a 16-11 win over the Virginia Cavaliers.
For the first 22 minutes, Maryland didn’t resemble the team that had dissected both Florida and Michigan last week. The Terps struggled in every aspect of the game committing four of their five first half turnovers, matching UVA’s seven ground balls, losing five of the nine draw controls and scoring just three goals on 10 shots while Virginia scored five times on eight shots.
Trailing 5-3 with just over eight minutes to play in the half, the Terrapins went on a four goal run over a span of 4:21 to take their first lead of the game. The first three scores came from the crosse of Caroline Steele with Zoe Stukenberg assisting on two of those. Just 11 seconds after Steele completed her pure hat trick, Megan Whittle scored the fourth goal in the run plucking a draw out of mid-air and outracing the Virginia defense for an easy score. A late goal by the Cavs showed that they weren’t going to fold under this Terrapin barrage.
Stukenberg opened the scoring in the second half extending the lead back to two. Once again, Virginia responded – this time by scoring three straight to recapture a 9-8 lead. The Terps then countered with a pair of scores as Whittle added to her career high dishing out her seventh assist of the season to Taylor Hensh followed by Jen Giles notching her second of the night. But the Cavaliers weren’t quite finished as Kasey Behr scored on a free position to knot the score at 10 with 14:32 to play.
At this point, the Terps made their second and decisive run of the game. Over the next 12 minutes, Maryland ripped the back of the net for six straight scores in a stretch that included the fourth and fifth goals for Steele, a pair of scores for reigning Big Ten Freshman of the Week Brindi Griffin and the second score of the night for Kali Hartshorn, who also added six draw controls. Whittle wrapped up Maryland’s scoring on a free position to give her a fourth consecutive game with three goals and the Terrapins a 16-10 lead with just over two and a half minutes to play. Virginia scored a late goal to account for the final margin.
As for those statistics, Maryland finished with 12 turnovers to Rutgers’ 17 and a 16-13 edge in draw controls. The Terps improved their shooting accuracy scoring 13 times on their last 18 shots while Megan Taylor stopped seven of the final 13 shots she faced. Coach Reese will undoubtedly have the team focusing on ground balls where the Terps and Cavs finished knotted at 18.
With the win, Maryland improves to 12-0 on the season and returns to conference play Saturday when they travel to Piscataway to face Rutgers (7-5; 1-1). The Scarlet Knights dropped their last outing 12-9 to eighth ranked Cornell. With no midweek game, Rutgers should be well rested and ready to challenge the Terps. Though it’s not their final home game, Rutgers has designated this game as their senior night.
Todd
That certainly could be a factor, Freddy. It could be part of the big picture of her late insistence (per a tweet from a Boise tv reporter last night) of Maryland not being the “right fit.” I’m still inclined to attribute a lot of it to homesickness but the odds are that we will never know the truth.
· 11/12/2019