After recovering from a mid-season swoon and advancing to the NCAA semifinals, the Terrapin men’s lacrosse team isn’t ready to adjust expectations or accept anything less than a national championship.
The No. 3-ranked Terps enter the season with nine seniors, many of whom have been part of three losses short of the national championship game. Those seniors understand this is their last season together and their final chance at a title. But they’re embracing their final opportunity.
“There is pressure because it’s our last year… the class that has the most experience and the core of the team is the senior class,” senior attacker Joe Walters said. “The pressure is that – it’s our last year and if we want to do something we haven’t accomplished in [31 years]. This is the year we want to do that. We all know this is the best chance we’ve got.”
That three-decade championship drought wouldn’t be much if not for lofty expectations every year. And even though the Terps continually make their perennial run into May, outside expectations aren’t wearing on coach Dave Cottle or his players.
“Pressure is what you make of it,” Cottle said. “We have a team, that, if things go well, we’re capable of going to the final four and being a factor.”
The Terps were bounced short of the championship game in two of the last three years, and senior midfielder Brendan Healy said that has lowered expectations from outside observers.
But while the past three seasons show the scope of the program’s success, much of how the Terps view themselves can be traced to last season, when they experienced the highs of capturing the ACC Tournament title and reaching the NCAA Final Four and the lows of their first 5-5 record in over a decade.
On April 15 last season, the Terps endured their third straight loss and sat at .500, in danger of missing the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1999. It took a win at Fairfield to lift them out from their losing streak and sparked the Terps to a six-game winning streak.
The Terps handled unranked Penn and the team’s mindset changed – leaving behind the idea they’d be happy to make the NCAA Tournament. The feeling carried over to the ACC Tournament, where the third-seeded Terps knocked off No. 2 Virginia and No. 1 Duke.
“Going into the ACC tournament, it was all about survival. We just wanted to get into the tournament,” senior midfielder Bill McGlone said. “After that, we beat two of the other final four teams … so it came from a mindset that ‘we beat them’ to a sudden boost of confidence.”
Those players are nearly a year older when the season starts Saturday at Georgetown and have firmly grasped the leadership role. After losing only midfielder Ian Healy from last year’s starting lineup, the 15 juniors and the seniors understand they have a job to do: bringing along the younger players.
“We have a lot of experience, but we also have a setup where we need a lot of younger players to step up this year and take key roles,” Healy said. “We need to set the tone, because when we go out to practice and we take it easy, they’re going to take it easy and we’re not going to get better that way.”
The Terps have the second-most difficult schedule in the country with games at No. 1 Johns Hopkins, No. 2 Duke and No. 6 Georgetown. They travel to Durham, N.C., and Washington for back-to-back contests to begin the season, and Cottle questioned whether his experienced team had sense of urgency early in the season.
One thing the Terps aren’t lacking is motivation after finishing last season with an 18-9 drubbing at the hands of the Blue Devils.
Walters said he and his teammates can’t wait to exact revenge on Duke for the loss and prove they are the best team in the nation.
With their sights set on getting beyond the final four, the Terps aren’t ignoring the expectations. They’re embracing them.
“It’s pressure we put on ourselves. Not only the pressure of what you want to do, but what you can do,” McGlone said. “But we’re used to that. We just need to step up and live up to it.”
Contact reporter Stephen Whyno at whynodbk@gmail.com.
