Ahead of the 2019 season, Maryland men’s lacrosse’s roster will have new faces leading the charge in every area of the field.

Last season’s 13-8 semifinal loss to Duke was also the last game for midfielders Connor Kelly and Tim Rotanz, defenseman Bryce Young and goalkeeper Dan Morris, among others. In all, the Terps lost 40 percent of their goals and 58 percent of their assists, as well as a second-team All-American defender and a goalie who led the program to its first national championship since 1975.

But roster turnover is nothing new for Maryland. Despite losing top contributors to graduation and transfer every offseason, the team always expects to skip the rebuild and remain in college lacrosse’s upper echelon.

“[The expectations] never change here. It’s a new journey with new parts and new kids,” coach John Tillman said. “It’s always fun and exciting.”

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Those expectations, year in and year out, are a product of both a winning culture and a constant supply of younger players ready to assume the roles of those who have moved on. High-level recruiting, and the leadership those recruits receive when they come to College Park, have allowed Maryland to continue dominating.

Since Tillman arrived at Maryland in 2011, he’s guided the Terps to a 110-33 record, seven appearances in the NCAA tournament semifinals and five trips to the national championship game.

“I don’t think it’s going to be too different,” attackman Jared Bernhardt said. “We have a lot of depth. A lot of younger guys are doing good, older guys are doing an exceptional job leading them, carrying them along.”

Last season, it was Kelly who made up for the scoring output lost with the graduation of 2017 attackmen Colin Heacock and Matt Rambo, who found the net 70 times during the Terps’ 2017 national championship-winning season. With 46 goals and 36 assists in 2018, Kelly helped balance the loss of that duo.

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While Maryland is losing players who scored a combined 84 goals a season ago, three of the team’s top five scorers — Bernhardt and midfielders Logan Wisnauskas and Bubba Fairman — are returning. Leading that group will be Bernhardt, who is likely to shoulder the responsibility of both a scorer and facilitator.

In his junior season, Bernhardt will wear Maryland’s coveted No. 1 jersey, which he inherited from Rambo and Kelly before him. But the coaching staff doesn’t expect him to deviate from his game to fill in for his predecessors.

“What happened before us, certainly those are things we can learn from, but we never try to tell Jared Bernhardt, ‘You need to be Matt Rambo,’” Tillman said. “Jared just needs to be his best and be the best player he can be.”

The number 1, which carries prestige and history within a storied Maryland lacrosse program, also comes with the responsibility of leadership.

Tillman recalls the senior class Bernhardt learned from when he was a freshman — a loud, boisterous group who made strong leaders. Bernhardt doesn’t fit the same mold, Tillman said, but he’s “just as strong a leader.”

“He just does it his way,” Tillman said. “Maybe a little more quiet, maybe pulls a guy aside. And he doesn’t say a lot, but when he does, it means a lot.”

Tillman said that Maryland may not have the abundance of household names it’s had in the past, but he points to depth as a strength of this year’s team, which is bolstered by 13 freshmen — five of whom rank in Inside Lacrosse’s top 100.

“We have a lot of depth this year,” Bernhardt said, “and I think that new guys coming in, we try to make sure it’s not just one guy. You’ve got multiple guys a team has to prepare for.”

The Terps begin the 2019 season ranked No. 3 in the country. While Johns Hopkins was predicted to win the Big Ten in the preseason media poll, Maryland will look to challenge for the conference crown, and make another run to the national title game.

In Tillman’s ninth season at the helm, he expects nothing less.

“The standard’s the standard here,” Tillman said. “We embrace it.”