An Instagram direct message alert popped up recently for Danny Dolan. Waiting was another reminder of the connection between Maryland goalies, past and present.

The sender was Gary Niels, an honorable mention All-America selection for the Terrapins’ 1975 national champions. But for Dolan to hear from one of his predecessors, while fulfilling, is unsurprising. He regularly texts with Kyle Bernlohr and Dan Morris. Brian Phipps dropped by a preseason practice. Brian Dougherty and Harry Alford have been in touch this spring.

“It’s awesome to see how far back it goes,” Dolan said. “It’s crazy to have your name thrown in with those guys, like Phipps or Niko [Amato], Dan, Kyle. The list just goes on.”

Dolan earned his turn this season. The fifth-year senior, who began his career at Massachusetts, will be the rare one-year starter for the Terps (12-4), who face third-seeded Virginia (14-3) in Saturday’s NCAA tournament quarterfinals in Hempstead, N.Y. But he’s done his part to live up to the legacy established before him.

It was his save in the closing seconds of regulation that helped get Maryland to overtime on Feb. 16 at Penn, a victory that later helped the Terps slip into the postseason. And he was instrumental in keeping Maryland in the game in the first round of the tournament, making 15 stops in a 14-13 overtime triumph at Towson.

The fascinating part of this is how routine it is for Maryland to plug and play at the position without seeing a massive dip in production. Put another way: When was the last time there were massive questions at goalie in College Park?

Take your time, because it might be a while before an answer comes to the surface. Each of the last nine goalies to serve as a full-time starter for a season for Maryland went on to become at least an honorable mention All-America selection in their careers.

And that group doesn’t include Dougherty, one of the best goalies to play in the last quarter-century and a first-team All-America pick in 1995 and 1996. Or Steve Kavovit, who owns the NCAA tournament single-game record with 30 saves in a quarterfinal against Brown in 1991. Or Jim Beardmore, the top goalie in the country in 1987.

“I think it’s kind of a fraternity,” Phipps said. “You know the spot you’re in and the defensive mentality that Maryland lacrosse has had ever since I can remember. It’s thrilling to be in those big shoes of guys you’ve looked up to and you want to be just like them.”

It helps to have resources to fall back on, and that’s where the alumni investment in the program comes into play. Coach John Tillman and his staff view former players as valuable connections and potential mentors for current Terps, and it’s especially true with the goalies.

Credit some of that to how many are in coaching. Dougherty (Springside Chestnut Hill Academy in Philadelphia) and Phipps (Archbishop Spalding in Maryland) are high school coaches. Amato is the head coach at Division III Immaculata. Bernlohr just wrapped up his first year as an assistant at Bellarmine.

When Maryland holds its annual alumni weekend each fall, the former and current goalies naturally gravitate toward each other and trade notes.

“Not in a critical do-it-my-way [manner], but more ‘This is something I tried, maybe you want to try this,’” Tillman said. “And our kids are usually like ‘He’s really good, I’m listening.’”

It’s enough to make anyone wonder whether it’s almost automatic Maryland will come up with stellar goalie play, a premise that drew some laughs from a variety of people tied to Tillman’s program this week.

(Spoiler alert: It isn’t).

“I’d like to think you can keep the train rolling and bank on it,” defensive coordinator Jesse Bernhardt said. “I think that’s where a lot of credit goes to the guys and coach Tillman to keep the consistency. It’s hard. It’s not an easy thing to do. The credit goes to those guys. We ask them to buy into a process and at times it’s not going to be what they want. It’s not the easiest thing in the world. The process doesn’t always work in your favor but if I’m playing the percentages, I’d say it’s worked for more guys than it hasn’t.”

One common bond for each of Maryland’s last four goalies is a redshirt season along the way. That’s not necessarily exclusive to the Terps’ current staff. Amato didn’t play as a true freshman under former coach Dave Cottle before becoming a four-year starter, and Dolan redshirted a year while at Massachusetts.

Yet regardless of how it happened, the Terps’ goalie conveyor belt has had an understudy season built in this decade.

“What helps with a lot of those guys is that it’s almost like the Brett Favre/Aaron Rodgers thing where you have a guy that you’re watching and you see him go about his business,” Tillman said. “In Danny Dolan’s case, you look at Dan Morris. He worked hard every day, was really committed, did things the right way, really communicated … You have kind of an extra guy as long as they communicate with each other and pass it down.”

Any discussion of Maryland’s goalies invariably comes back to the quality of the defense in front of them. Maryland might not field defenses as physical or aggressive as the classic Dick Edell teams of the 1980s and 1990s, but effective defense still instantly comes to mind when thinking about the Terps’ program.

But this doesn’t have to be a chicken-or-the-egg proposition.

“You could spin it as the goalies have had great defensemen in front of them, and on the other hand, a lot of defenses have had some really good goalies behind them,” said Bernhardt, himself a first team All-America long pole as a Maryland senior in 2013. “In some years, maybe if we lacked in one area, I think we’ve picked up in another.”

More was probably asked of Dolan this season than a typical first-time starting goalie at Maryland. Curtis Corley is a mainstay on close defense, but the Terps dealt with both inexperience and a talent drain as most of the pieces of the 2017 national title team have graduated.

Yet there were already signs during last year’s apprenticeship, when Dolan appeared in one game and played less than four minutes, that Maryland would have a fully invested goalie this spring.

“He’s a lefty goalie but he would play right-handed on the scout team whenever there was a right-handed goalie in the next,” Corley said. “He will do anything for this team. It’s kind of what we do here at Maryland.”

Dolan is a reminder that even with a string of successful goalies at Maryland, the personalities of those players is far from monolithic. Earlier this year, Dolan acknowledged how much it meant to him to play for a school he grew up rooting for, even pointing to being entered for the final seconds of the Terps’ 2017 quarterfinal defeat of Albany as an exceptional memory.

Yet his path to success on a given day stems from not overstating the importance of any given moment, something that came in handy during his performance against Towson.

“It honestly felt like a normal game for me,” Dolan said. “I didn’t think of it as a tournament game --- bigger or smaller or however you want to think of it. I go into every game [as if it’s] just lacrosse. There’s a lot of bigger things in life, so it just helps to keep that perspective in the game.”

Whatever way the Terps’ goalies have approached their craft, the results have remained constant: A standard of excellence and a thread stretching through the decades tying together the men who have stood between the pipes while wearing a Maryland uniform.

“You don’t want to take it for granted, but knock on wood, it seems like the cream comes to the top when the pressure’s on,” Phipps said. “That’s the goalie mentality, kind of wanting the power to deliver when the pressure’s on.”