Maryland men's lacrosse rode a six-goal run in the first half to take a four-point lead at half and never looked back in their ninth straight win over Princeton with the 13-9 win.
Princeton came out to a strong start with a 4-2 lead through the first eight minutes of the game. Then, Logan McNaney and the rest of the defense started to lock in and held the Tiger offense scoreless the rest of the first half to help give the Terps an 8-4 lead heading into halftime.
In the second half, the scoring slowed down a bit as both squads would only get five goals each going back and forth as the Terps kept their four-goal lead to end the game. This is the first time the Terps defense has held their first four opponents to less than ten goals since 2014.
It was a very balanced scoring effort from the Terps offense as three different players led the way with three points. Braden Erksa, Daniel Kelly, and Zach Whittier all had two goals and an assist in the winning effort. Jack Shultz and Aidan Aitken also scored their first career goals for the Terps today.
Defensively, like last week, the Terps gave up some points to the top two threats in Coulter Mackesey and Nate Kabiri, but outside of those two, only one other player had more than one point. The Terps defense did a great job at not letting anyone but the top threats beat them. Logan McNaney had a rough start to the game but finished the day with 12 saves on a 57.1% save percentage.
Takeaways
The Great
For the second week in a row, the Terps held what is considered one of the top offenses in the country to less than ten points. The defense was smothering all day and gave up very few good looks on McNaney. Princeton took a whopping 46 shots in the game but only 21 were on goal making McNaney’s day a lot easier.
The Good
The Terps won the possession battle which was a big part of the win. Like Princeton, the Terps for the second week in a row took care of the ball and did not give the Princeton offense extra possessions. The Terps only turned the ball over 11 times. As well as not turning it over, the Terps won the ground ball battle 34-29 and the face-off battle 16-10. When facing a legit offense, the best defense is keeping the ball out of the opponent's hands which is exactly what Maryland has done the last two weeks to bring home the wins.
The Bad
The Terps defense had three penalties today. While Princeton was only able to capitalize on one of them, most great teams will do better with their extra-man opportunities. The Terps also had three failed clears today. Failed clears can lead to quick restarts for the opponent which will lead to unsettled offensive opportunities for them. The Terps defense is at its best when it is playing six on six ball. The more the Terps can limit the opposition to have unsettled opportunities, the more unstoppable this defense will be.
Three Stars
Braden Erksa, Daniel Kelly, Zach Whittier
All three led the team in scoring with two goals and an assist each. The three also totaled six ground balls and only turned it over twice between the three in the win.
Shea Keethler, Sean Creter
To start the game, the face-off battle was not going well for the Terps. Andrew McMeekin was dominating both Keethler and Creter. But, the pair massively bounced back in the second quarter and never looked back as both finished the day above 50% from the dot. Keethler finished going 10/15 with five ground balls while Creter went 6/11 with two ground balls.
Jack Shultz
Shultz was the second leading scorer for the Terps today with two goals including his first career goal. Shultz started the season on the third midfield line but was bumped up to the second midfield line last week and he has proved that he belongs with his last two games. Shultz also picked up a ground ball in the win.
The Terps will now gear up for the highly anticipated national championship rematch against the #1 ranked Notre Dame Fighting Irish down in Atlanta next Saturday. The game will face-off at 1PM and will be aired on the ACC Network.
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