2024 NCAA Lacrosse Preview: No. 5 Maryland (Men)
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© 2024 USA Lacrosse. All Rights Reserved.
© 2024 USA Lacrosse. All Rights Reserved.
The 2024 Division I men's college lacrosse season kicks off February 2. As is our annual tradition, we’re featuring every team ranked in the USA Lacrosse Preseason Top 20 in the lead up to opening night. Check back to USALaxMagazine.com each weekday this month for new previews, scouting reports and rival analysis.
2023 record: 10-6 (3-2 Big Ten)
Final ranking (2023): No. 9
Head coach: John Tillman (170-46 in 12 seasons at Maryland; 190-65 in 15 seasons overall)
Assistants: Jesse Bernhardt (defensive coordinator), Michael Phipps (offensive coordinator), Tim O’Branski
Maryland made things look easy all too often during its perfect 2022 season.
That’s not how it works most of the time, as the Terrapins found out last spring.
No longer were they as experienced as anybody. And no longer did they largely avoid significant injuries. And yet they also beat a pair of teams that played on the final weekend of the season (Penn State and Virginia) and took the eventual national champions to overtime.
“At times, I felt when we were on the same page and everybody was playing well, we could play with anybody,” coach John Tillman said. “And when we were bad, we were bad. We just were. We showed our youth, we showed our inexperience. We just didn’t play to the best of our ability, and that certainly falls on me.”
And so Maryland finds itself between the two poles of its recent past. The Terps probably aren’t going to be a juggernaut like two years ago. But especially at the offensive end, where all of their major contributors besides Kyle Long return and Eric Malever (26 goals, 22 assists in 2022) is back from injury, this is a team that should have more consistent answers than last spring.
“They’ve seen it before,” Tillman said. “It’s not the first time around. They have more experience. They understand what it takes every day. They know what to expect every week. They have routines. In certain ways, I feel we certainly could have done better last year. In others, I’m proud of our guys because we easily could have made some excuses of how we lost a lot of guys and now we’re injured. It’s just not meant to be. It’s just not what we do here.”
Braden Erksa, A, So. (26 G, 22 A)
Luke Wierman, FO, Gr. (.606 FO%, 136 GB)
Ajax Zappitello, D, Sr. (29 GB, 21 CT)
Maryland enjoyed the luxury of a pair of No. 1 defensemen the last couple seasons in Brett Makar and Ajax Zappitello. And both had their strengths: Makar was more effective against physical attackmen, while Zappitello’s speed helped him contain more slippery foes. Makar closed out his college career last spring, and Zappitello now takes over as both the clear-cut leader of the Terrapins’ defense and the latest player to wear the program’s hallowed No. 1 jersey.
“He’s made of the right stuff. He’s very similar to Brett,” Tillman said. “I think he learned a lot from Brett in terms of his focus at practice. He doesn’t take plays off. He’s very dedicated. There isn’t a day that I wonder, ‘Where’s Ajax? What are we going to get from him?’ He’s really consistent with his approach and preparation, and I think that will rub off on some of the other guys.”
Nick Alviti, LSM, Gr. (4 G, 6 A, 24 CT, 40 GB at Vermont)
Jackson Canfield, D, Gr. (12 CT, 34 GB at Vermont)
Griffin King, M/A, Gr. (18 G, 7 A at Brown)
Maryland wasn’t as active on the transfer market as it was a few years ago, but it still picked up several figures from Vermont’s defense. Alviti and Canfield were first-team all-America East selections for the Catamounts last season, while defensive midfielder Colin Sharkey was a second team all-league pick. Those three should immediately bolster a Terp roster that took its greatest graduation hits at the defensive end.
Graduations: John Geppert, LSM; Donovan Lacey, SSDM; Kyle Long, A/M; Brett Makar, D
Transfers: BJ Burlace, D (Notre Dame); Garrett Gibbons, SSDM (Stony Brook)
Focusing on football: Dante Trader Jr., SSDM
Logan McNaney, G, Sr. (.531 SV%, 8.31 GAA)
Brian Ruppel, G, So. (.484 SV%, 11.25 GAA)
McNaney took over as Maryland’s goalie a few games into the truncated 2020 season and helped the Terps reach the national title game in 2021 and complete an undefeated run the following year. His 2023 season lasted all of two games before a knee injury sidelined him, and Ruppel took over as the starter two weeks later.
“I told both of them: Be ready,” Tillman said.
McNaney participated in limited work at the end of the fall, and his resume includes a most outstanding player nod for the 2022 NCAA tournament after making 19 stops against Princeton in the semifinals and 17 more against Cornell in the title game. It makes McNaney one of the most established goalies in the college game. But he still needs to demonstrate he’s healthy.
“It’s nice to be able to have two guys, and for a freshman to get thrown in there, I thought Brian did an admirable job,” Tillman said. “If Logan’s not ready or he doesn’t come back at the level he was at, we have confidence in Brian. But if Logan can come back, he was obviously playing at a pretty high level after ’22.”
An awkwardly timed offensive coordinator hire has worked out for Maryland before. Just three years ago, Tillman brought in Bobby Benson after J.L. Reppert took over as head coach at Holy Cross. The Terps lost one game in two seasons, won a national title in 2022 with a virtually unstoppable offense and Benson got a program of his own at Providence.
It was wins all around, except for the teams facing Maryland.
In November, Jake Bernhardt (Benson’s replacement) left to become the head coach at Division III Colby College. The next month — well after fall practice ended — former Terp attackman Michael Phipps became the latest Maryland offensive coordinator.
Realistically, there isn’t enough time to overhaul the offense. But Phipps will add some wrinkles, and he’ll be helped by the versatility of the personnel he inherits.
That — along with attackman Braden Erksa, the Big Ten’s freshman of the year last season — is the built-in strength of Maryland’s offense. Among the options who could run out of the box: Daniel Kelly and Daniel Maltz, who started on attack last season, as well as Owen Murphy, Ryan Siracusa, Eric Spanos and Zach Whittier. None of that quartet started regularly last season. All of them managed at least 10 points.
“Last year, we really didn’t see the production out of that first unit that we anticipated,” Tillman said. “But we also on a positive note got production from Spanos, Whitter and Siracusa that I wouldn’t say we were surprised, but it was something that was super helpful as guys who maybe hadn’t proven yet — and they did prove a lot. Those guys really helped us last year.”
Chances are, Maryland won't have five 30-goal scorers like it did in 2022. But there are plenty of options, and that figures to make the Terps plenty dangerous under their new coordinator.
“You always know that Maryland is going to be in midseason form, whether it’s February, March, April or May. I think they have set the standard for execution and preparation driven by the characteristics of their coaching staff.”
Braden Erksa’s freshman year performance for the Terrapins presents a promising outlook; nine of the 10 players who qualified as a historical “close comp” saw their efficiency, and specifically their ball security, improve over the rest of their careers. Erksa finished the 2023 season with a respectable 54th-percentile individual efficiency rating. His comps suggest he’ll be able to improve on that this season, but it’s no guarantee, especially as he starts to attract more and more defensive attention.
Patrick Stevens has covered college sports for 25 years. His work also appears in The Washington Post, Blue Ribbon College Basketball Yearbook and other outlets. He's provided coverage of Division I men's lacrosse to USA Lacrosse Magazine since 2010.
