Attackman Owen Blye’s third-quarter goal was his second of the game and the first of five Terps scores in the period. The offensive surge distanced the Terps from Navy in their 13-6 win.
When halftime arrived at Byrd Stadium on Friday, coach John Tillman had a simple message for his Terrapins men’s lacrosse team: relax.
The No. 12 Terps had outshot Navy 29-8 and gone 10-for-13 on faceoffs. Yet their attempts were missing, and they left the field nursing a one-goal lead.
“Let’s take a deep breath, clean the slate,” Tillman told his players. “You’re winning, all right? Just go back to shooting your best shot. OK, play loose. Have some fun out there.”
The meditation session worked.
The Terps exploded for five unanswered goals in the third quarter, rolling to a 13-6 victory over the Midshipmen before 5,022 fans at Byrd. It was the most lopsided result in the series since the Terps routed Navy, 21-7, in 1998.
Attackman Joe Cummings led eight Terps in scoring with three goals and two assists, and the team avoided its first three-game losing streak in three years.
The Terps (6-3) dominated the Midshipmen (5-5) in nearly every statistical category. They won 18 of 23 faceoffs, captured 34 of 53 groundballs and tallied 52 of the game’s 70 shots. It was the Terps’ most shots against the in-state rival since at least 1986.
Navy goalie R.J. Wickham did his best to keep things close, recording 11 first-half saves en route to a season-high 18, but the Terps’ overwhelming possession advantage ultimately proved too much for the Midshipmen.
Faceoff specialist Curtis Holmes, who had won just half of his draws this season entering the contest, played a critical role in the disparity. The junior went 15-for-20 at the X, at one point helping the Terps win 14 straight faceoffs.
“Anything I can do to make the defense’s job easier,” said Holmes, who has battled nagging injuries much of the season. “Niko [Amato] came up to me after the game and was like, ‘You made my job so easy tonight.’ And that’s my job. My job is to let Niko have a night off.”
Even with an overwhelming number of opportunities in the first half, the Terps struggled to find the back of the net. They converted on just 20.7 percent of their attempts and were forced to settle for a 6-5 lead entering halftime.
But Holmes described the mood at the break as “confident,” and the Terps quickly took control of the game in the second half. They scored all five goals in the third quarter, taking 17 of the 21 shots in the period.
“We just really didn’t shoot the ball that well [in the first half],” midfielder Kevin Cooper said. “I think everyone just knew, if we kept doing what we were doing, shots were going to fall. We’d put more goals in.”
Five different Terps scored during their third-quarter barrage, with Cummings capping the stretch on a high note. The senior finished off his 10th career hat trick on a no-look, behind-the-back goal with 3:32 left in the third.
The Midshipmen’s lone second-half goal came when Terps defender Michael Ehrhardt accidentally pushed a ball sitting in the crease across the goal line midway through the fourth quarter.
The Terps rebounded from the miscue three minutes later when they scored two goals in a six-second span to cement the win.
Friday’s victory was a welcome relief for a team eager to make its 10th straight appearance in the NCAA Tournament this May. The Terps were coming off back-to-back conference losses, and now await a tough road test at No. 3 Johns Hopkins on Saturday.
“We’re back on the right track,” Cummings said. “The season kind of becomes a grind a little bit, and you’ve got to fight through stuff and you’ve got to really grind it out.”
Grind it out? Maybe. Or just relax.
letourneau@umdbk.com
