When: Saturday, February 1st | 12 PM | SECU Stadium
TV: BTN+
Radio: Maryland Sports Radio Network | 105.7FM (Balt.) | 980AM (DC)
Betting: Maryland -5 | O/U: 22.5
The 2025 season is finally here as Maryland men’s lacrosse kicks off its 100th season. Head coach John Tillman will lead his team to begin their redemption tour and get back to the national championship game for the fourth time in five years. Maryland will look to secure its 32nd consecutive season-opening win when they welcome Richmond, who reached postseason play in two of the last three seasons.
Maryland is 4-0 all-time against Richmond, including a 12-11 double-overtime win last season, though three of the last four games have been decided by one goal.
Dan Chemotti leads the Spiders in his 12th season as head coach, but this season, Richmond is in a similar situation compared to Maryland. There will be a lot of new faces on both squads starting for the first time whether it is due to graduation or upgrades in the transfer portal.
On offense, the two guys to look out for will be Aidan O’Neil and Gavin Creo. O’Neil was the Spiders’ second leading scorer last season with 51 points coming off of 31 goals and 20 assists. With Richmond losing three of their four top scorers, O’Neil’s role will be massively larger this season and will be the focus of the Spider offense. Creo, a true freshman last season totaled 12 points off of eight goals and four assists. With the top two attackmen other than O’Neil graduating, Creo’s role will be much larger this season as he looks to show he can take on the burden of a top attackman on a top-20 team.
On defense for the Spiders, everything goes how their All-American goalie Zach Vigue goes. Vigue finished 2024 with a save percentage of 56% only having a goals against average of 8.46 goals per game. Richmond’s defense was fairly young last season. They have three players returning that caused 10 or more turnovers in 2024. The two key defenders returning are Hunter Smith and Tommy Stull. Smith and Stull both had 16 caused turnovers last season while also picking up a total of 61 ground balls. With the pair returning along with the addition of grad transfer Mitchell Dunham who caused 30 turnovers last season and was a first team All-MAAC selection for Mount St. Mary’s last season, look for Richmond to yet again have a stingy defense and give the Terps a hard time trying to find the back of the net.
Key players on the Terps to look out for this week on offense are Eric Spanos and Matt Keegan. With the addition of five-star freshman Spencer Ford, the Terps will have the option to move Spanos back to middie where he started the season or keep him down on the left wing where the offense seemed to look its best last season. Keegan was named a 2025 impact transfer to watch by Inside Lacrosse’s Matt Kinnear. He will possibly rotate with Daniel Kelly on the right wing to start the season and will also be a key part of the Terps extra man offense. There will be a lot of new faces on the Terps offense this season. Jack Dowd, Bryce Ford, and Noah Armitage will also look to add to the middie scoring production that the Terps seemed to lack outside of Spanos last season.
On defense for the Terps, the biggest question will be who will replace Ajax Zappitello as the #1 on ball defender. In 2023 when Zappitello was sidelined with a broken hand, it was freshman Will Schaller who took over for him. Last year with the addition of Jackson Canfield however Schaller moved to LSM. Schaller will be a guy I expect to get a shot to fill in the third close defender spot along with incoming five-star freshman Peter Laake. Another player to look out for will be Zack Goorno. Goorno was a massive pickup in the transfer portal from Bowdoin which is a D3 powerhouse lacrosse program. Goorno will add much-needed depth to the short-stick defensive midfield room and it will be interesting to see if he will be on the first or second line defensive midfield.
IBG Prediction: Richmond will be a good first test of the season to see where the team stands. With it expected to be cold and rainy, I would not be surprised with a closer game than expected. However, I still think the Terps will have the depth to pull out a 14-11 win to start off the season.
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