COLLEGE PARK — Maryland men’s lacrosse likes to promote its defense as one of the program’s strongest pillars. Tasked with preventing goals, that unit demonstrated it can score them, too.
On a day when an offense outside of Eric Spanos sputtered with few moments of execution, the defense produced two goals and limited visiting Ohio State to its second-lowest output of the season to lift the No. 6 Terps to an 8-7 win Saturday afternoon before an announced 4,005 at SECU Stadium.
Graduate student goalkeeper Logan McNaney stopped 10 shots, including a stick save with 48 seconds remaining to cement the victory. He anchored a defense that kept the Buckeyes off the scoreboard for a stretch of 26:50 bridging the second and third quarters.
“The biggest thing was just giving Logan McNaney shots he wanted to see,” said senior defenseman Ajax Zappitello, who collected two ground balls and two caused turnovers. “He’s one of the best goalies in the country for a reason, and we’re really cooking on all cylinders when we’re kind of able to let him see the ball really well, which he did an awesome job for us today.”
Junior attackman Jack McKenna amassed three goals and one assist for Ohio State, but Zappitello shut out junior midfielder Alex Marinier, who scored a career-high five goals in the team’s 14-8 win against Rutgers on March 30 and entered the game leading the offense in both goals (22) and points (23). Except for McKenna, the Buckeyes’ starting offense combined for two goals on 12 shots, two assists and nine turnovers.
“They did a really good job of changing matchups, mixing and matching who they were putting their short sticks on,” Ohio State coach Nick Myers said. “I think that in addition to the faceoffs and not having the ball as much as we would like, it just affected our rhythm offensively. It just felt like we couldn’t get into one.”
When Maryland (7-3, 2-1 Big Ten) wasn’t thwarting the Buckeyes’ offensive chances, the defense created some. With the score tied at 3 at halftime, Zappitello forced sophomore midfielder Blake Eiland into a turnover and got the ball to senior long-stick midfielder Jack McDonald.
McDonald carried the ball into the offensive zone and proceeded to rip an overhand shot between Ohio State freshman goalkeeper Caleb Fyock and the right post just 1:35 into the third quarter.
After Spanos, a junior midfielder, bounced a shot past Fyock with 11:32 left, the Terps pounced on a Buckeyes turnover at midfield. Sophomore attackman Braden Erksa got the ball to graduate student short-stick defensive midfielder Colin Sharkey, who passed the ball to graduate student long-stick midfielder Nick Alviti for a goal that was very similar to McDonald’s.
In an 8:15 stretch, Maryland embarked on a 3-0 run capped by goals from a pair of long-stick midfielders. McDonald — who, like Alviti, scored his first goal of the season — credited defensive coordinator Jesse Bernhardt with encouraging the long poles to take reasonable risks.
“That’s something we always work on with Coach Bernhardt,” McDonald said. “When we have those opportunities in transition [and] just being able to can them, they’re big momentum goals. When you see a long pole score, it just gets the guys fired up. They carry a lot of weight. So just being able to work on your stick and having a good stick is everything.”
Spanos emerged as the most potent weapon for the Terps, racking up four goals and one assist. His presence was especially pivotal in the fourth quarter when he scored two goals in a 43-second span to turn a 6-6 tie into an 8-6 lead with 4:34 left in regulation.
But outside of Spanos, Maryland labored to find any consistency on offense. The starting unit accounted for two goals on 17 shots, two assists and 11 turnovers.
The group might have missed senior attackman Daniel Maltz (20 goals and two assists in nine starts), who was replaced by senior attackman Daniel Kelly, a Towson native and Calvert Hall graduate who went 0-for-3 and committed two turnovers. But coach John Tillman acknowledged the offense’s troubles against the 6-foot-2, 297-pound Fyock, who grew up in Bowie in Prince George’s County.
“A lot that we can work on,” he said. “I just felt at times we were out of sync. We were trying to do some different things, and then we’d get out there, and we weren’t all on the same page as much as we try. We tried to do some different things, but I think we’ve got to look at the film and kind of talk to some of the guys. I thought Spanos played great today. Braden, it wasn’t his best day, but I’m sure he’ll respond really well.”
Fyock made a game-high 11 saves to buoy Ohio State (6-6, 1-2), but the team had few answers for Terps senior faceoff specialist Luke Wierman. Not only did he finish 13 of 18 on faceoffs and pick up a game-best eight ground balls, but he also won 7 of 10 in the second half, including back-to-back draws that contributed to Spanos’ two goals to give Maryland an 8-6 edge.
“We had it knotted up, but we weren’t able to get another opportunity,” Myers said, pointing to Wierman’s performance. “We cut it to one and had a chance to tie it and maybe didn’t get as good of a look as we would’ve liked.”
No. 1 Northwestern women 17, No. 2 Maryland 9
In front of a record crowd against the reigning NCAA champions, the Terps withered in the spotlight.
Maryland built a 4-3 lead but then could only watch helplessly as the visiting Wildcats scored 11 of the game’s next 12 goals to cement their third-most lopsided win against the Terps in their 31-game series.
Maryland (10-3, 3-1 Big Ten) was shut out for 17:04 spanning the first and second quarters and then 16:39 bridging the second and third periods. The team also turned the ball over a season-worst 22 times (12 combined in the second and third frames) and scooped up just one ground ball in the first half en route to 12 for the game compared with 22 for Northwestern (11-2, 3-1).
An announced attendance of 2,400 — a record for the Field Hockey & Lacrosse Complex — showed up to watch the top two teams in the nation. But Terps graduate student goalkeeper Emily Sterling acknowledged that she and her teammates did not send the fans home happy.
“We talk about how we have a finite number of opportunities, and today was another opportunity, and sadly, we didn’t capitalize on it,” said the Bel Air resident and John Carroll graduate, who made a game-high 10 saves. “The good thing is, we have two more opportunities, two great opportunities in the conference coming up.”
Afterward, senior midfielder Shaylan Ahearn said the blame lay with her and her teammates.
“I think what just happened out there was completely us doing it to ourselves,” said the Woodbine resident and Glenelg Country graduate, who won a game-high 10 draws and picked up two ground balls. “It wasn’t anything they were doing to us in particular. It was just that hesitancy that we were playing with, and with [No. 9 Johns] Hopkins coming up [on Wednesday], we’ve got to attack the pressure instead of kind of backing off a little bit. But I don’t think it was them. I think that was our mistake.”
During the Wildcats’ 11-1 run that stretched over 31:37, Maryland turned the ball over 12 times and failed to clear the ball twice.
Senior attacker Chrissy Thomas came off the bench to pace the offense with four points on two goals and two assists. But senior attacker Eloise Clevenger, a Woodstock native and Marriotts Ridge graduate who entered the game as the team’s leader in both assists (41) and points (56), did not earn an assist, scored both of her goals in the fourth quarter when the Terps trailed by eight, and finished with twice as many turnovers (four).
Coach Cathy Reese said she noticed a lack of aggression from the offense.
“I felt our offense as a whole was a little flat,” she said. “We were just watching each other a little bit, and Northwestern is tough. They’re physical, they play pressure and put a lot of pressure on you. We just kind of watched our teammates a little too much today rather than helping each other out. So I think that was part of our unnecessary turnovers. We were standing and watching, and it was easy for them to either check the ball or pick off a pass. It was something where we got a little lazy or complacent on our end.”
Wildcats superstar and sixth-year attacker Izzy Scane was her usual brilliant self, racking up seven points on six goals and one assist. But she got some help from sophomore attacker Madison Taylor, who matched her in both goals and assists.
As pleased as she was by Taylor’s production, Northwestern coach Kelly Amonte Hiller took greater delight in watching her players withstand Maryland’s early rush in the first quarter, especially as Ahearn and teammates Meghan Ball and Shannon Smith helped the Terps gain a decisive 11-3 advantage in draw controls.
“Maryland traditionally comes out very strong in games,” Amonte Hiller said. “They just have a lot of enthusiasm, and we know that about them. Sometimes when we played them in the past, that’s gotten us in a big hole. So we talked about that and made sure that we were matching that energy, and I think we matched it, and then we were able to figure out what’s working on the offensive end and what’s working on the defensive end. Despite the deficit on draws in that first half, we were able to still capitalize on our opportunities. And then once we were able to start winning some draws in that third quarter, we really were able to pull away a little bit.”
Rutgers at No. 6 Maryland men
Saturday, 7 p.m.
TV: Big Ten Network
No. 2 Maryland women at No. 9 Johns Hopkins
Wednesday, 6 p.m.
TV: ESPNU