In their first game as the nation's top-ranked team since 2022, Maryland men's lacrosse remained undefeated and advanced to 6-0 after dominating Delaware, 14-3, on Saturday.
The Terps started the game with a fast start coming out to a 3-1 lead at the end of the first quarter and they never looked back. Zach Whittier led the Terps in scoring with five points off of two goals and three assists. The five point scoring effort was a career high for Whittier. The defense was locking the Blue Hens down all game only allowing the three goals and forcing Delaware to commit 11 turnovers.
The Terps seemed to be on cruise control the entire game offensively just getting whatever looks they wanted to get. Along with Whittier, Eric Spanos had a career high four assists on the day as well. On the day, the Terps offense outshot the Blue Hens 46-34 with 29 of them being on goal. Nine total Terps entered the score sheet with seven different goal scorers. The Terps had their best ball movement this season with 11 total assists on the day as well. Logan McNaney finished the game with 16S saves. Seven total Terps finished the day with a caused turnover while AJ Larkin and Will Schaller led the Terps with two.
After just winning six face-offs combined last week, Shea Keethler and Sean Creter combined for 9/18 for an even 50% on the day.
Takeaways
The Great
The Terps defense held a good Delaware offense to just three goals the entire game and forced 11 turnovers on the day. Delaware only got off 34 total shots on the day with 25 being on goal. McNaney had another stellar day with 16 saves while Brian Ruppel had six saves as well when he came in to relieve McNaney in the second half. Delaware was just never able to consistently get good looks and were rarely able to win their one on one matchups to draw slides.
The Good
The Terps offense scored 11 of their 14 goals off of an assist. When the Terps move the ball as well as they did today, the offense will be very hard to stop. The Terps offense only coughed the ball up eight times on the day as well.
Needs Improvement
Last week, Will Lynch dominated the Terps at the face-off. This week, Shea Keethler and Sean Creter only were able to go 50% from the face-off dot and only had one ground ball between the two. Getting ready for conference play soon, Keethler and Creter will need to get back to a groove where they dominated the face-off through the first four weeks if they want to make it easier on the squad to make a deep run in May.
Three Stars
Logan McNaney
McNaney finished the day with 16 saves allowing just three goals on the day. McNaney was seeing the ball very well all game long and was not letting in any easy goals for the Blue Hens all game long.
AJ Larkin
Larkin finished the day tied for leading the team with two caused turnovers on the day along with picking up four ground balls. Larkins has cemented himself as the second long stick midfielder behind Jack McDonald and has made him and McDonald one of the best LSM pairs in the country.
Offensive Starters
Four of the Terps offensive starters finished the day with four or more points. Zach Whittier, Eric Spanos, Braden Erksa, and Matthew Keegan combined for eight goals and nine assists on the day. The quartet also picked up seven ground balls in the winning effort.
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