From umterps.com
Senior Casey Townsend tallied a hat trick as No. 5 seed Maryland scored three second half goals to defeat West Virginia 4-0 in the second round of the NCAA Men’s Soccer Championship.
The Terps’ (14-3-3) recent offensive woes were all but an afterthought as they outshot West Virginia (11-8-1) 19-5 to advance to the third round for the 10th consecutive season.
After a shaky start that began with two early corner kicks from the Mountaineers, the Terps settled in and jumped on the away side with a strike in the 20th minute.
As the second half commenced, Sunny Jane took over with a slick combination of speed and foot skills throughout the offensive third.
Jane’s elusiveness paid off in the 60th minute when he played a nifty back heal along the flank to Jereme Raley. Raley collected the pass and played a low ball across the box to Townsend for his second goal of the match.
Maryland struck again just one minute later when Jane played a beautiful low ball across the Mountaineer goal line. Jordan Cyrus easily tapped home the cross for his first career goal to put the Terps ahead 3-0.
“It feels good to win again,” head coach Sasho Cirovski, who’s squad was 0-2-2 in its last four matches heading into the tournament, said. “We had a great week of practice…the best one since preseason. I expected us to be very good tonight and we were. Clearly it was one of the most complete performances of the season. We know that when we are sharp, we are going to be as good as anybody. Tonight we did all the little things right.
“West Virginia is a very difficult team to play against. To have a performance like that against a high quality team is a credit to our players.”
Maryland will play the winner of No. 12 Louisville and Bradley next Sunday at 5:00 p.m. at Ludwig Field in the third round of the NCAA tournament.
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