COLLEGE PARK, Md. — In consecutive weekends, Maryland’s lacrosse team found itself in trouble. It barely held off Richmond at home, then was fortunate to escape Penn with an overtime victory on Saturday.

And it stood to get more than it bargained for Tuesday, as resurgent Colgate paid a visit in the Terrapins’ lone midweek game of the season in a contest added to the schedule late in the offseason.

Little wonder Maryland coach John Tillman was relieved to escape with a relatively stress-free 11-6 defeat of the Raiders.

“If this was not a midweek game, we’d probably look at it a little bit differently,” Tillman said. “What we wanted to make sure was that it wasn’t going to become a track meet because we wanted to get the win, but we also didn’t want to get exhausted.”

There were several aims for Maryland (4-0) to juggle. It wanted to control possession --- and pace --- and did so behind Austin Henningsen’s 14-of-20 performance at the X. It hoped to get its offense rolling quickly, doing so thanks to Jared Bernhardt (four goals, one assist) and Logan Wisnauskas (three goals, two assists).

And it wanted to look like, well, Maryland. Which meant limiting turnovers (which it did for a half) and authoring a respectable showing on the ground after failing to do so Saturday.

It had to do it against a Colgate team rejuvenated under first-year coach Matt Karweck. The Raiders (2-1) opened with a victory at Syracuse, a far cry from the 17-5 drubbing they absorbed at the Carrier Dome to close out 2018, and then dismissed Binghamton on Saturday.

Tillman is a canny scheduler, doing everything he can to maximize the potency of Maryland’s slate. The Terps entered the NCAA tournament with the No. 1 strength of schedule in 2017 and checked in at No. 2 last two, earning the No. 1 seed in the tournament both seasons.

Still, there’s always danger lurking with a short turnaround, and it was amplified both by Colgate’s quick start and Maryland’s uneven play in the early stages of the season.

Instead, the Terps pieced together an impressive 20-minute stretch to close out the first half and put the game out of reach.

After neither team scored in the first 10 minutes, Maryland rattled off four goals in a row, including two in the final 14 seconds of the first quarter. When Colgate scored for the first time, the Terps got goals from Bernhardt, Wisnauskas and Christian Zawadski to eventually stretch the lead to 9-3 at the break.

“We’re really encouraged,” said Bernhardt, who came the 55^th Maryland player to surpass the 100-point mark for his career. “The first half was like playing pickup basketball, just back and forth. It’s also a little weird vibe midweek, but I think once guys got settled down in the second half it helped us out.”

It was an out-of-character showing for a Colgate team that’s tried to define this early season by its strong fundamentals. The Raiders finished with 15 turnovers, and only three of the 13 committed in the first three quarters were forced by Maryland.

“I’ve never seen us throw the ball away like that. We’ve been working on it since the fall,” Karweck said. “We were short-arming passes, we were throwing the ball over people’s heads. We were hesitant. When you hesitate, you just lose.”

Maryland had no such problems when the game was tight. The Terps got both Bernhardt and Wisnauskas engaged early, but also received multi-point outings from everyone in their top six. Zawadski provided a score from a second midfield line that was utilized more than in previous games, with freshman Kyle Long assisting Zawadski for his first career point.

Colgate never got closer than four goals in the second half.

“The way that coach [J.L.] Reppert has those guys catching the ball and zinging it without getting ball pressure is really, really impressive,” Karweck said. “They had great space all day. We were trying to get out on them and get sticky. We held them to two in the second half. It wasn’t some unbelievable halftime adjustment by any means. It was our guys having the ability to get out and start to guard them.”

No doubt some of that was better play by the Raiders, who are poised to re-emerge as a greater factor in the Patriot League race this season. But some of it was Maryland being only too happy to stand around and milk the shot clock throughout the second half.

With the reduction of midweek games, teams aren’t nearly as accustomed to cramming three games into eight days. And Tillman had no interest in wearing out his team in advance of Saturday’s trip to Navy, especially with the Terps coming off an draining afternoon at Penn.

He got his wish, but only after witnessing a shaky start.

“I thought both teams were super-sloppy in the first half,” Tillman said almost apologetically. “If you bought a ticket, after the first 10 minutes, you might have wanted a refund.”

There was no hint of remorse for the less explosive second half. A quiet 30 minutes that included four shot clock violations was a deal that suited Tillman and the Terps just fine at such a tricky juncture of their schedule.

Tuesday Scoreboard

No. 3 Maryland 11, No. 15 Colgate 6
No. 14 Army 10, Marist 4

Boston University 16, Sacred Heart 11
Drexel 17, Michigan 16 (2 OT)
Furman 12, Canisius 10
Holy Cross 12, UMass-Lowell 7
Lafayette 13, Manhattan 5
Richmond 17, UMBC 12