For the first half, the Maryland men’s lacrosse team struggled offensively. While the opposing No. 18 Rutgers squad was getting close-range chances often, the Terps were struggling to find, and convert, those same chances. Then, in the span of a few minutes in the third quarter, the Terps clicked and attacker Dylan Maltz led a resurgence.
Down 6-5 to the Scarlet Knights, Maltz notched consecutive goals, the second of which gave him his second hat trick of the season. After both crucial goals, Maltz’ teammates jumped on his back right behind Rutgers goalkeeper Kris Alleyne and screamed in excitement for their rally. While it seemed as though the teammates were feeding of Maltz’ energy, the junior thinks it worked the other way around.
“I just think that the energy on the bench was fired up after every goal, even the goals before, and that really helped us,” Maltz said. “Just the bench being so positive for us.”
In a battle of the top two teams in the Big Ten, the No. 5 Terps notched an 11-8 win on Senior Day at Maryland Stadium. The Terps struggled to match Rutgers’ scoring pace for much of the game, but a third-quarter run led by Maltz, who had a team-high four goals, flipped the game in the Terps favor before they put the game away in the fourth.
The Terps’ (9-2, 3-0 Big Ten) resiliency prevented them from losing their first game since their March 5 meeting with then-No. 2 Notre Dame. The three-goal deficit in the third period wasn’t something the Terps had experienced much this season, but still, the squad stuck together and focused on rallying back.
“Rather than get caught up in the moment of the momentum swings, teams making runs, a big focus of the last few weeks has been to stay focused and stay positive and focused on the next play,” defender Matt Dunn said.
Had the Terps lost, it would have marked the program’s first loss to Rutgers since 1980.
The Scarlet Knights (9-3, 2-1 Big Ten) began the game aggressive, taking two early shots on goalkeeper Kyle Bernlohr before ultimately scoring the first goal of the game after less than five minutes. After Terps midfielder Pat Young tied the game at one, Rutgers responded with another goal of to finish the first quarter up 2-1.
“Senior Day is tough, there’s a lot of emotion going through the kid’s heads,” coach John Tillman said. “We were anxious and couldn’t seem to settle down in the first half. We didn’t move a lot off ball, we kind of got stubborn.”
After attackmen Matt Rambo and Maltz each scored, the Scarlet Knights clamped down on defense, something Tillman attributed to Rutgers assistant coach Jesse Bernhardt, a former Terp, and stormed back with two goals of their own to regain the lead.
Then the Scarlet Knights reeled off four consecutive goals spanning the second and third quarters, until the Terps attack heated up with the help of Rambo, Maltz, and fellow attackman Colin Heacock. Two of the four goals in the period came unassisted, as seven of the 11 Terps goals did.
“In the second half, the guys were much more patient,” Tillman said. “They moved, possessed, and things started to open up a little bit more.”
With a single-goal advantage, the Terps played with more freedom and ease, enabling them to pull away from the Scarlet Knights. After Heacock scored his second of the game, Maltz upstaged him with his fourth goal of the game, a career high for the junior, to extend the lead even further.
So while the Terps offense struggled initially, they were clicking by the end of the afternoon, with Rambo, Maltz, and Heacock all registering hat tricks. It was enough to send the veterans home with their eighth consecutive victory.
“I’m very proud of our team,” Tillman said. “We talked a lot this week about sending them off on Senior Day the right way so they could enjoy the rest of the day. So I’m very happy for our team, specifically our seniors. A lot of those seniors came up for big today for us.”
