Jaclyn Borowski

In Sunday’s ACC title loss, the most noticeable piece of the Terrapin men’s lacrosse attack was the one standing on the sideline in street clothes.

Attackman Will Yeatman sat out during the loss to No. 1 Virginia with a mild concussion suffered in Friday’s game against North Carolina, leaving the team’s offensive strategy in disarray. Without him, the No. 3 Terps scored nearly five fewer goals than their season average, and the attack unit put just two points on the board.

Coach Dave Cottle and fellow attackman Grant Catalino called Yeatman’s absence “no excuse” for the lackluster performance. But Yeatman’s head injury certainly hampered the team’s offensive abilities.

“With Yeatman going out, they were more limited in their options offensively,” Virginia coach Dom Starsia said Sunday.

The Cavaliers likely breathed a little easier with the Terps’ hulking senior out of the lineup. Since he joined the team as a transfer from Notre Dame before last season, he has been the team’s biggest weapon against the Cavaliers .

Against Virginia last year, Yeatman notched two goals and three assists on the Terps’ attack unit in a losing effort. In their April 3 meeting with their conference rival this season, the Terps switched him from his spot at midfield to the front line, where he scored a career-high four goals in an 11-10 loss.

Sunday, Cottle had hoped to employ the same strategy that has been so successful against the Cavaliers in the past — work from behind the cage to feed to the 6-foot-6, 250-pound attackman sitting on the edge of the crease.

Yeatman’s injury made that impossible.

“Without our guy who was going to attack them, we had to go out in front, and that was a downside,” Cottle said.

Virginia defender Ken Clausen, who usually matches up with the bigger Yeatman, instead defended the smaller Ryan Young, who is normally able to set up the offense from behind the cage. But under Clausen’s pressure, the team’s assist leader did not get a single point, and his struggles spread through the attack. Catalino went 1-for-9 shooting, and Travis Reed went 1-for-5, their poor shooting often springing the Cavaliers’ potent attack.

“When you take a shot that gets saved, that’s a transition the other way,” Cottle said. “So that’s a classic case of bad offense lends itself to bad defense.”

Cottle said he expects Yeatman to be back in time for his Senior Day match against Fairfield on Saturday.

POSTSEASON PROSPECTS

With the ACC Tournament finished and the NCAA Tournament just around the corner, coach Dave Cottle figured he’d try his hand at bracketology.

After the Terps’ loss to the Cavaliers on Sunday, Cottle opined on what the near future may hold for both teams. The ninth-year coach saw his own team as a strong candidate for the No. 3 seed in the 16-team tournament field, citing the team’s strength of schedule and dominance over then-No. 3 North Carolina on Friday in the semifinals of the ACC Tournament.

“But we’ve got to take care of business,” he said. “We’ve got to win every game left.”

Cottle also picked the Cavaliers over Syracuse for the top seed.

“In my mind, they’re the best team in the country right now,” said Cottle, who served a four-year term on the NCAA Division I Men’s Lacrosse Committee. “We’ll find out how it goes along, but they should be the No. 1 team in the NCAA Tournament if you look at their résumé.”

TIME OFF

After a month in which the Terps played six straight games against formidable opponents — two against Virginia, two against North Carolina and one each against in-state rivals Johns Hopkins and Navy — the team has earned a break of sorts. But it won’t last long.

Cottle gave the team Monday and yesterday off but said they will be right back to work today to prepare for Saturday’s game against unranked Fairfield and then next week’s against Colgate.

The Terps are the only ACC team with two games before the start of the NCAA Tournament on May 15, but players said they’d rather be playing than sitting.

“This team that we have now is unbelievable,” Catalino said. “Even when we lost those two games [earlier this season], our team stayed at the same level. We weren’t down on ourselves at all — none of that. We just keep moving on.”

kyanchulis@umdbk.com