NCAA Quarterfinals: Maryland Rolls Past Virginia, Returns to Championship Weekend

(Photograph Courtesy of Maryland Athletics)

For the ninth time in 12 seasons, the John Tillman and the Maryland Terrapins are headed to Championship Weekend. The Terrapins continued their good season with a 18-9 win over the Virginia Cavaliers on Sunday in Columbus, Ohio.

After dropping to Virginia within the nationwide title recreation final season, Maryland has now gained every of their final two conferences in opposition to the Cavaliers. The Terrapins beat Virginia 23-12 in a impartial website battle in Washington, D.C., in mid March.

Virginia struck first with freshman Griffin Schutz discovering the again of the web slightly below 4 minutes into the competition. However it didn’t take lengthy for the top-seeded Terrapins to settle in and get rolling.

Anthony DeMaio ran previous offensive midfielder Xander Dickson, who acquired caught on protection, and put one previous Matthew Nunes to get the scoring began for Maryland. He would put dwelling one other one simply over two minutes later after which add a 3rd first-quarter rating close to the top of the body to offer himself a hat trick and make it a 4-1 recreation.

Following DeMaio’s second purpose of the sport to place the Terrapins up 2-1, they by no means trailed or noticed the sport tied ever once more. One facet that helped Maryland keep forward and ultimately break open the sport was the play of Luke Wierman on the faceoff dot.

After seeing Virginia’s Petey LaSalla go 4-for-6 on the dot within the first quarter, Wierman flipped the script within the second as he went 8-for-9 within the body. That included a pair of wins that led to a pair of fast objectives from Daniel Maltz and Jonathan Donville to tug the Terrapins forward 6-2 and actually begin to take management of the sport and head into the half with a 9-4 benefit.

The Terrapins put collectively one other comparable sequence of two objectives in six seconds, together with an Owen Murphy rating off a Wierman feed, within the third quarter. In whole, Maryland scored 4 objectives that got here rapidly off faceoff wins. Three of these scores got here by means of Owen Murphy.

Along with the development on the faceoff dot from the primary quarter by way of the rest of the sport, the Terrapins additionally breaded their butter in the course of the sphere on the trip and in transition. Maryland compelled two Virginia failed clears within the third quarter and scored off one.

Logan McNaney anchored the Maryland protection with 14 saves. Bubba Fairman (3GB/4CT) and Roman Puglise (1G/1A/3GB/1CT) had profitable days on the SSDM spot whereas Brett Makar grabbed 4 floor balls and triggered one turnover at shut. Ajax Zappitello was matched up on Connor Shellenberger many of the day and held him with with zeros on the stat sheet.

Logan Wisnauskas and Anthony DeMaio every went 3-2 for 5 factors on the day. Owen Murphy had 4 objectives.

Jeff Conner (3G/1A) led the best way for the Cavaliers’ with 4 factors whereas Payton Cormier and Griffin Schutz had equivalent 2-1 video games.

Maryland will face Princeton within the NCAA semifinals subsequent Saturday in Hartford, Conn.