VILLANOVA, Pa. – Connor Kelly might have worn No. 21 if it weren’t unofficially retired by Maryland to celebrate Frank Urso.

Kelly found a different connection to the Hall of Famer when he joined Urso as the only Maryland midfielders with 100 career goals after scoring three goals and adding two assists in No. 3 Maryland’s 13-11 win at No. 6 Villanova on Saturday.

“It means a lot,” said Kelly, the senior captain from Easton, Conn. “A lot of greats have come through here. I credit it to the guys I’ve played with. I’ve played with such great players over the last couple of years. I’m very fortunate to play with a great group of guys this year.”

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Kelly Scores 100th Goal as Maryland Returns to Winning Ways

Maryland improved to 6-1, while Villanova dropped to 6-2 with both of its losses coming at home. The Terps remain on the road with a game against North Carolina next Saturday in the Pacific Coast Shootout in Costa Mesa, Calif. Villanova will host Fairfield next Saturday.

“I’m very excited about that win,” Kelly said, “but we have our next game coming up in Cali, so I’m looking forward to it.”

Kelly wears No. 1 this season after wearing No. 40 his first three years. The number carries special significance in the Maryland program. Since 1986 when Andrew Whipple donned it, the No. 1 has been passed down from one outstanding offensive player to the next.

“Coach Tillman reached out to me this summer, and said, ‘Why don’t you wear No. 1?’” Kelly said. “I couldn’t pass it up.”

Kelly is the seventh straight All-American to wear No. 1. He is the first Maryland player to wear the jersey for only one year after inheriting it from Matt Rambo, the Tewaaraton Award winner who graduated after leading the Terps to their first NCAA championship since 1975 last spring.

“It’s been an awesome experience,” Kelly said. “The amount of support I’ve gotten, not only from fans, alumni have reached out to me, and the previous guys that wore No. 1 – Matt Rambo was here today, who’s an awesome guy and awesome player – and I’m just trying to represent them as well as the university as best I can.”

Kelly has worn it well while transforming his game from a top scorer to also a leading playmaker for the Maryland offense. He is second on the Terps in goals with 18 and leads the team with 22 assists.

“Obviously, losing some great players in Rambo and [Colin] Heacock and [Dylan] Maltz, I’m trying to take on a new role and be that facilitator on offense,” Kelly said. “At the end of the day, I take whatever’s given to me. Whatever presents itself, I try to make the best play.”

Opportunities to assist have been more plentiful with defenses focusing more attention on him. Kelly is only five assists away from equaling his career total of 27 through his first three seasons at Maryland.

“In high school, I thought I was a great feeder, but obviously my points did not speak for that the last couple of years,” Kelly said as he laughed. “I’m trying to do the best I can for the team.”

Kelly’s big day helped Maryland rebound quickly from its first loss of the season against No. 1 Albany last week. Albany rallied late for its only lead of the game and the 11-10 win.

“It was one of our first opportunities to face adversity, and we were real disappointed with the way things went,” Maryland coach John Tillman said of last week’s loss. “Those are the weeks you wish you had a Tuesday game so you could get back at it, but I thought the seniors did a good job.

“This team is an interesting team. We’re not a real emotional team. It’s just our seniors, even their body language, we’re not every animated. Connor Kelly is not the most animated and Jared [Bernhardt isn’t]. The guys internalized it and talked about it and we talked about getting better.”

Maryland has only trailed for 4:29 of the entire season, and the Terps never trailed against Villanova after Kelly ripped a long shot from straight on to open the scoring for Maryland. They have outscored opponents 29-10 in the first quarter this year.

“We always preach first five minutes,” Kelly said. “We always try to get that first ground ball off the faceoff, we always try to move and be unselfish and communicate on offense. It’s really a testament to all the guys, all the preparation we put in day in and day out.”

Bernhardt also had five points for Maryland on four goals and an assist. Logan Wisnauskas added two goals. Four other players scored and six Terps had assists. Justin Shockey won 17 of 28 faceoffs, and Dan Morris came up with eight saves, six of them in the first half as Maryland built a 7-3 lead and avenged last year’s overtime loss to Villanova.

After Louis Dubick’s man-up goal midway through the first quarter, Villanova never came closer than 4-3 with 9:28 left in the second quarter. The Wildcats got four goals from Connor Kirst, two goals and an assist from Danny Seibel, and a goal and three assists from Christian Cuccinello. Nick Testa made 10 saves for Villanova.

“We have to play a complete game,” Kelly said. “We had a great first quarter, then that second quarter we started to slip on offense. We have to play good wholesale offense. We’re selling our defense short on short possessions and not taking the right shot. At the end of the day, we have to be smart and make the right play.”

Maryland made all the right plays in the early going. The Terps bolted out to a 4-0 lead with Bernhardt’s first goal and a goal in transition from Bubba Fairman off an assist of Kelly.

“We thought it was important to try to get back on track, and I thought the guys did,” Tillman said. “We came out with some energy.”

Villanova scored its only goal of the first quarter on a patient possession that ended with Keegan Khan feeding Danny Seibel for a score. The Wildcats opened the second quarter with an early goal, with Seibel feeding Khan after causing a turnover by Morris, who had just made a great save on a behind-the-back shot. Villanova drew within a goal when Cuccinello sent a long pass across the defense to Kirst, who fired it in low in the right side, but otherwise the Maryland defense was stingy.

“They do such a good job of moving people all the time,” Tillman said. “You have to communicate really well. That was a big part of our game plan on offense and defense this week. The emphasis was to communicate better.”

Bernhardt answered with his second goal, Maryland’s first goal in more than 12 minutes. Bernhardt picked up an assist when he found Will Snider, who sent a rising shot in for a 6-3 edge. Bernhardt registered a hat trick with a man-up goal off a feed from Kelly to give Maryland a 7-3 halftime lead. Kelly has been able to find Maryland’s other weapons well this year.

“I think he saw the evolution of Matt, [Rambo]” Tillman said. “When Matty came, he was a goal scorer and Michael Chanenchuk was kind of the distributor and he was No. 1. And when Michael graduated, Matt took No. 1 and he became more of a facilitator and tried to get everyone involved. He was very much a high-goal, low-assists guy early and that’s what we needed him to do, but his game evolved and got so many more people involved and made so many people better. I think Connor is that same way. If he can get his hands free, he can shoot, but he’s trying to include everybody. If he gets a lot of attention, which he typically does, he’ll find the open guy and that gets our other guys involved and gets them confidence too.”

Both teams were sloppier than usual in the first half. The teams entered the game with Maryland ranked first and Villanova fourth in turnovers per game, but at halftime Maryland had seven turnovers and Villanova had eight. Villanova finished with 14 turnovers and Maryland had 12, but only five in the second half.

“We really do put a lot of emphasis on the first quarter, but also the third quarter,” Tillman said. “Going in and taking a look at things and talking about here’s what we’re going to do and make some adjustments and hopefully get that first one in.”

Maryland added to its lead less than a minute into the third quarter on Wisnauskas’ first goal of the game, but Villanova responded with goals from Kirst and Jared Nugent on nice individual moves to cut Maryland’s lead to 8-5. Kelly’s second goal of the game pushed Maryland back to a four-goal advantage. Less than a minute later, Tim Rotanz deposited a goal to double up Villanova, 10-5.

Kirst’s third goal of the game, off an assist of Cuccinello, gave Villanova a temporary lift, but Shockey won the faceoff and hit Kelly, whose third goal gave Maryland an 11-6 lead and put him in the Maryland record books alongside Urso.

“Anytime you mention Frank Urso, you get everyone’s attention,” Tillman said. “Connor would look at that as a compliment just knowing what a great one Frank was. What I love about Connor is he’s about so much more than goals. He got back on defense today. He’ll do that and play good defense. He did a good job of getting us organized today and just making sure we were balanced up. To do that says a lot. I think he would probably thank his teammates for a lot of that. I think that’s the big adjustment. Without Matt and Colin and some other guys drawing the attention, it’s been a little bit harder and different, but I think he’s adjusting well.”

Villanova’s Devin McNamara and Colin Crowley scored the first two goals of the fourth quarter to bring them within 11-8, but Maryland responded with Bernhardt’s fourth goal of the game to cushion itself and another goal from Wisnauskas made it 13-8 with 2:37 left.

Villanova — which is down three injured starters in goalie Matt Barrett (knee), midfielder John Kluh (knee) and faceoff specialist Luke Palmadesso (foot) — erupted in the final minute with goals from Seibel, Kirst and Cuccinello to make the final score more respectable. But Maryland felt in control from start to finish to return to its winning ways.

NIKE/US LACROSSE
TOP 20 SCOREBOARD

No. 1 Albany 21, No. 19 Vermont 5
No. 2 Duke 10, Towson 8
No. 3 Maryland 13, No. 6 Villanova 11
No. 4 Notre Dame 9,  No. 8 Virginia 7
No. 5 Denver 12, No. 20 Ohio State 7
No. 7 Yale 13, Cornell 11
No. 9 Loyola 15, Navy 9
Drexel 15, No. 10 Georgetown 10
No. 12 Johns Hopkins 14, Delaware 8
No. 14 Lehigh 19, Lafayette 11
No. 15 Army 5, Holy Cross 3
No. 16 Hofstra 12, Providence 8
Penn 14, No. 17 Princeton 7

OTHER SCORES

Air Force 11, VMI 6
Bryant 20, Mount St. Mary's 11
Bucknell 16, Boston University 9
Colgate 18, Canisius 5
Furman 10, Richmond 9
Harvard 10, Brown 8
High Point 15, Bellarmine 7
Hobart 11, Wagner 5
Jacksonville 16, Mercer 8
Michigan 12, Marquette 7
Monmouth 12, Manhattan 8
Penn State 17, Fairfield 13
Quinnipiac 12, Siena 11
Robert Morris 12, Sacred Heart 8
St. John's 12, Dartmouth 5
UMass 17, Hartford 13
UMass-Lowell 14, Binghamton 10