Coach Cathy Reese stands on the field with her kids after the Terps’ 15-12 win over Penn State on April 23, 2015.

After a full day of lacrosse games, Cathy and Brian Reese were lounging by the pool at their Howard County home with their four children for Mother’s Day.

Following her top-seeded Terrapins women’s lacrosse team’s second-round NCAA tournament win over Massachusetts, Cathy rushed over to a youth lacrosse game to watch her 10-year-old son Riley.

Then, Riley and Reese’s other children — Brody, 8, Cayden, 7, and Braxton, 3 — gave their mom a collection of gifts, including a homemade poster filled with glitter and coupons for her to use to have the kids make dinner, take out the trash and get the mail. There was only one thing left for the family to do: go out to dinner.

But when Brody learned that his mother was too tired to go out, he broke into tears.

Brian said the family was taking “a rain check” on Mother’s Day this year, and it likely will have to wait until Cathy and the Terps finish their run for a second consecutive national title, which could stretch to the end of May.

Such is reality for Reese, who is regularly forced to balance parenting her children and coaching the perennial powerhouse women’s lacrosse program. But through the grind, the two spheres of her life have merged.

“There’s never a dull moment,” Reese said. “Enjoyable [is] not really the right word because it’s hard, but at the same time, it makes it really special.”

A LIGHT MOOD

The Terps sported a 27-game winning streak entering their conference semifinal match against Ohio State on May 1. But by the time the final buzzer sounded, the Terps walked off the High Point Solutions Stadium field with dispirited expressions on their faces as the Buckeyes celebrated an upset.

Reese and the coaches approached practice with a more serious mentality the following week with the NCAA tournament looming. Yet during a team talk on the field after a workout, Reese and her squad couldn’t help but laugh as Braxton walked through the huddle pretending to shoot the Terps like a Power Ranger.

And Reese’s youngest isn’t the only one of her children to entertain the women, whom Riley refers to as his “Terps sisters.”

Riley is often seen dancing on the sidelines at practices and games and is known for performing the NaeNae and the Whip.

Cayden thinks of herself as one of her mom’s assistant coaches and often gives the Terps pep talks after her mom gives in to her incessant pleading to address “her” team.

“There’s only two things I’m good at,” Reese remembers Cayden shouting to her players. “It’s eating cookies and kicking butt, and we’re all out of cookies, so it’s kicking-butt time.”

PARENTING BOTH SIDES

With such a close, constant interaction between her kids and players, Reese has fostered a family-like atmosphere around her program.

Senior attacker Taylor Salandra said Reese is always there to help her “conquer her day” when she has a problem — just like a mom would.

“She brings her kids to practice and you watch her teach them and parent them, and at the same time, she’s a coach to us,” Salandra said. “She takes herself out of lacrosse and teaches us things that we need to carry on throughout life, and so I think she does a good job kind of parenting us as well.”

The family aspect of Reese’s coaching philosophy shone through when Riley was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes three years ago. While Reese slept in the hospital for the 31 days Riley was hospitalized, groups of players visited them on their free nights.

Reese’s assistants became more involved in planning for games and arranging the other team activities during her absence.

After learning that freshman attacker Shelby Scanlin is a Type 1 diabetic, Reese organized a juvenile diabetes awareness game when the team hosted Rutgers on April 4. In her team’s 17-5 trouncing of the Scarlet Knights, Reese’s efforts raised more than $12,000 for juvenile diabetes research and inspired her to continue the program’s outreach game on an annual basis.

“That fueled our fire,” Salandra said. “You wanted to win for her. You wanted to win for Riley.”

A TERP FAMILY

The Reese family’s connection to this university doesn’t end when practices are over or when the game clock strikes zero.

Cathy and Brian both played lacrosse for the Terps from 1995 to 1998, and Reese said her kids are convinced they’re going to follow in their parents’ footsteps.

All four attend as many Terps sporting events as they can. They’ve become emotionally attached to the program.

They cried when their mom’s squad fell to the Buckeyes two weeks ago. They cried when the Terrapins men’s lacrosse team fell to Ohio State in the Big Ten tournament earlier that week. They even cried when the Terrapins men’s basketball team lost to West Virginia in the second round of the NCAA tournament in March.

Their support for their parents’ alma mater, though, doesn’t end when they leave the College Park premises.

Brody’s first-grade class was assigned to wear purple for field day last year on the same weekend the Terps faced Northwestern in the Final Four. Instead, Brody was decked out in red from head to toe while he took pictures among his classmates, who were clad in the Wildcats’ primary color.

“He’s in first grade, and he’s just like, ‘What? I’m not wearing purple. My mom plays tonight,’” Reese said.

But as her kids have gotten older, it’s been tougher for Reese to keep them directly involved with the team. Likewise, it’s been tougher for the Reese parents — their attention and driving skills pulled in four different directions — to handle their active bunch’s schedules.

“If I said that I was a big help, that’d kind of be a lie because Cathy does everything,” said Brian, who is also a consultant for the Chesapeake Bayhawks in Major League Lacrosse.

Still, the kids spent their spring break running across the Field Hockey and Lacrosse Complex’s turf with lacrosse sticks in hand.

And Riley has posted a bunch of Terps-related pictures to his Instagram account. He even put up a happy birthday message to attacker Brooke Griffin.

Sometimes, however, he’ll upload pictures with captions that read: “Terps sisters don’t like this. I want to see how many likes I can get,” assistant coach Lauri Kenis said, because he wants to gauge his popularity without the help of about 50 likes coming from his mom’s squad.

Reese said she isn’t very social media-savvy, but her favorite picture on Riley’s Instagram is a selfie of the two that he posted on Sunday.

In the caption, he wishes his mom a happy Mother’s Day and says he loves her with a heart and kiss emoji. But much like the Reeses’ Mother’s Day celebration, the ending piece of Riley’s note was a product of the Reese family’s unique lifestyle.

“It [reads] happy Mother’s Day, she’s great, #beatUMass,” Reese said laughing. “This is just kind of how we roll.”