Megan Frazer

Megan Frazer has been wondering how it would feel for the past three years.

The midfielder is just one of eight seniors who will be honored tonight before the No. 6 Terrapins field hockey team faces Rutgers in its regular-season finale.

And with her mom, sister and girlfriend all flying from her home country of Ireland to see her play one last time in a Terps uniform, Frazer doesn’t quite know how to put it all in perspective.

“I don’t think that it’s really going to hit home that it’s Senior Night,” she said. “You know, it’s an eventful game, but you never imagine

it’s going to happen to you. I remember being a freshman and preparing for our seniors, and saying, ‘Imagine when we’re seniors.’ And now we are — it’s hard to imagine.”

For Frazer, playing collegiate field hockey was no simple objective. A native of Derry, a city located on the border of Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland, she often traveled out of town three or four nights a week to play stiffer competition. Her parents, Stan and Margaret, made the three-hour drive to Dublin on weekends to let her train with the Irish national team.

“They were very glad when I passed my driving test,” Frazer said.

She led her high school squad in goals for three straight years, and captained the team to the Northern Ireland Schools Cup title her final year. But none of that prepared her for the emotional toll she would take when she pursued coach Missy Meharg’s invitation to play in America.

“The first two weeks I was here, I literally cried every time I was by myself,” Frazer said. “Not having family here or anything, it was really difficult at first. Then when I went home for the month over Christmas, I felt so weird. It was the longest I’d ever been away from home.”

She had no such trouble adjusting to the American game. Even though she missed the team’s first three contests while playing with the Irish national team, she ended the year fourth on the team in goals and tallied six game-winners.

But those aren’t her chief memories of 2009. She first ponders losing a 2-1 lead in the final minutes of the national title game against North Carolina. It was her first loss — the team had won 23 consecutive games up to that point — and she didn’t like the feeling.

The Terps reached the final game once again in 2010. But this time, Frazer put it upon herself to erase those trying memories. With the title game held in College Park and the squad taking on the Tar Heels for the second straight year, Frazer rocketed a shot into the net in overtime to send the Terps to the pedestal.

“Scoring the winner with my family here and the home crowd, the atmosphere was unreal,” said Frazer, who also notched the game-winning assist in the 2011 title game. “Those feelings are things that drive me through the whole season to get to that endpoint.”

Frazer will know what that final endpoint is by mid-November. She has appeared in the national championship game every year, and she even won the sport’s highest honor, the Honda Sports Award, last season.

But winning one last title as co-captain in her last season, just like she did in high school, would likely be her biggest accomplishment.

“Now that it’s getting closer, it’s more real,” she said. “You know you’re playing for those feelings at the start of the season, but they don’t really come to life until this time, when it’s so close.”

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