COLLEGE PARK, Md. — The usual offensive formulas haven’t worked for Maryland for much of this season.
College lacrosse’s steadiest program by any measure was forced to trudge from week to week through the spring, the task of figuring out how to score a harrowing exercise that is far from automatic on even good days and in less-pleasant weeks a puzzle without a solution.
And its last time out was decidedly unpleasant, a 10-goal loss to Penn State in the Big Ten tournament that doubled as the Terrapins most lopsided defeat since 2006.
So naturally, with sizzling, rapidly maturing Ivy League champion Princeton rolling into town, Maryland uncorked its best game since they faced the Tigers back in February.
Eric Spanos scored four times and Jack Koras and Eric Malever collected three goals and two assists as the seventh-seeded Terrapins followed a strikingly similar script to its last three meetings with Princeton and rolled to a 16-8 victory before 3,195 at SECU Stadium.
“When we play well and we’re clean and we’re clicking, the potential is there,” coach John Tillman said. “We’ve just been so inconsistent at times. … I do think they realize this is the end, and it’s either now or never.”
Maryland, which holds the longest active streak of NCAA tournament appearances with 21, improved to 11-2 in first-round games under Tillman and will face second-seeded Duke next Saturday in Hempstead, N.Y.
Freshman Nate Kabiri had three goals for the Tigers (11-5), who were bounced on the road by a Big Ten program in the first round for the second consecutive year.
Last year’s exit was a whipsaw, Princeton leading by six and then trailing by three before scrapping back before falling 13-12 at Penn State. This was a thorough obliteration, Maryland pouncing for the first three goals, constructing an 8-1 advantage and never enduring a serious threat.
It was sort of like the teams’ last three meetings — all within the last 24 months — only worse.
In the 2022 NCAA semifinals, Maryland led 5-1 after a quarter, never let the Tigers get any closer than three and won 13-8. But hey, that was a generational Terps team and Princeton was making its first Memorial Day weekend appearance in 18 years. It was disappointing, sure, but an admirable effort.
In the last two regular seasons, things went similarly. Maryland went up 5-1 in the third quarter, maintained at least a three-goal edge the remainder of the day and won 11-5. And on Feb. 24, the Terps were up 6-1 in the second quarter of a 13-7 victory, never permitting the Tigers within four after establishing an advantage.
Maryland led by at least six goals for the final 41:53 in the postseason encore.
“They jumped on us from the get-go,” Princeton coach Matt Madalon said. “They were doing a really good job of isolating one-on-one matchups, taking advantage of us a little down around the goal line-extended area. We knew it would be a tough spot to defend. It always is, and they just really executed in those spots.”
Another common thread in this year’s two games was Luke Wierman’s play on faceoffs. He won 20 of 23 in the first game to heavily tilt the field, then went 20-for-26 against the Tigers on Saturday.
Yet it wasn’t all Wierman, who assisted on Maryland’s third goal to knock Princeton off balance. Spanos, starting on attack for the first time this season while Braden Erksa came out of the box after being hospitalized in the wake of hitting his head on the turf in the Big Ten tournament, matched his career high in scoring (first established, naturally, against Princeton earlier this year).
Malever, who missed last year with a torn knee ligament, had his second five-point game of the year (both against Princeton) and left a defender spinning behind the crease on his first goal, which made it 7-1.
And then there were the when-it-rains-it-pours moments for Princeton on a sometimes-soggy night, such as when Koras bounced a shot through the legs of Michael Gianforcaro (nine saves) when the goalie was inadvertently screened by one of his defenders to put the Terps up 9-2.
Maryland didn’t let up aside from a 10-minute wobble in the third quarter, establishing a season high in goals and enjoying its largest lead (10) and most lopsided victory of the season. The Terps’ previous best on both fronts came in an 11-4 defeat of Loyola on Feb. 11.
“Something we were preaching this week was tempo and at times we’re playing slow,” Spanos said. “That was a huge thing. It just opened up on the back end a lot of stuff for us.”
The loss concluded a season for Princeton that was brimming with potential thanks to the addition of a loaded freshman class led by Kabiri. The Tigers had one of the Ivy League’s top defenses, and the team started to figure things out after a puzzling mid-April loss to Brown.
Effectively forced to play for its season in every game after that, Princeton beat Penn and Yale to close the regular season, then the same teams in the opposite order to claim its second consecutive Ivy League title to fulfill predictions it would be a high-ceiling team.
“The nation got to see a lot of that and our team got to see a lot of that,” Princeton long pole Pace Billings said. “We did a lot of good things. We obviously didn’t get the result that we wanted today, but I’m just so proud of everyone on this team. There’s a lot to be proud about in what we’ve done and how we’ve performed.”
Maryland does, too, after mustering just 14 goals in its final two games before the postseason. It wasn’t hard to envision the Terps meeting a similar fate as last year, when they played at home in the Saturday night slot during the first round and couldn’t contain Army in a 16-15 loss.
This time, Maryland summoned some early answers, and quickly shut the door on any thoughts of an opening-weekend exit.
“I felt like we were just better in the moment,” Tillman said. “It just seemed like we were an older team, and our older guys really helped us.”
