Midfielder Taylor Cummings shoots and scores during Maryland’s 13-10 win over Penn State at the Field Hockey and Lacrosse Complex on April 23, 2015.
Throughout its 2015 campaign, the Terrapins women’s lacrosse team faced few obstacles in reaching a 17-0 record.
The Terps won their games by an average of 7.35 goals and outscored opponents 245 to 120. Even in their only halftime deficit — against Princeton on April 8 — they used a second-half surge to top the Tigers, 18-10.
But Thursday night, the Terps found their quest for a perfect regular season in jeopardy when Penn State pulled within a goal 10 minutes into the second half. Still, the Terps escaped the rare pressure with a 13-10 win to clinch the Big Ten regular-season title.
“It was a great game, a game of runs for sure,” coach Cathy Reese said. “We found a way to pull it out [Thursday]. I think we were getting a lot of good looks. Some of them weren’t falling, so we found a way to pull it out when things were getting tough. … Really proud of our team’s effort.”
The Terps’ missteps started from the opening draw of the second half. After the Terps had dominated the draw circle in the opening period, going 11 of 12, Penn State midfielder Katie O’Donnell secured the half’s first possession.
The freshman turned the ball over, but Reese’s squad couldn’t capitalize on the possession. The Terps missed their first five shots before Penn State reversed the field, and O’Donnell netted a point for the Nittany Lions at the 23:39 mark.
“We had a lot of nice opportunities within there, and we didn’t answer,” Reese said. “Our shooting percentage isn’t really where we want it. … Obviously, we want to look to stick a few more of those.”
Nineteen seconds later, O’Donnell rifled a pass to midfielder Jenna Mosketti for a score. And 45 seconds after that, midfielder Tatum Coffey slid an attempt past Terps goalkeeper Alex Fitzpatrick.
To cap a four-goal run in a 3:38 span to trim the Terps’ advantage, midfielder Steph Lazo scored after Terps midfielder Taylor Cummings turned the ball over in Nittany Lions’ territory. Penn State controlled each of the draws that eventually led to its points.
“Jenna Mosketti, our girl that takes it in the middle, did a good job of getting some to herself and contesting Taylor for a little bit better in the second half,” Penn State coach Missy Doherty said. “They really killed us in the first half not having possession.”
After Lazo’s score and a media timeout, Cummings regained her form in the draw circle and scored two goals in a 48-second span. Her first came as Nittany Lions goalkeeper Emi Smith was hobbled with a knee injury from blocking Terps midfielder Zoe Stukenberg’s free-position shot seconds earlier.
Doherty replaced Smith with goalkeeper McKenna Coyle in the ensuing possession, but the freshman couldn’t stop Cummings’ free-position shot.
Midfielder Kelly McPartland converted her only score of the day 27 seconds after Cummings’ tallies to help the Terps push their lead back out to four goals and halt the Nittany Lions’ surge with 16:11 left.
“We saw it as, ‘All right, she hasn’t [seen] a shot all game, so let’s fire it and see what happens,’” Cummings said. “[We] stuck our first three on her and were kind of able to give ourselves a little breathing room.”
From there, Reese said, the Terps’ defensive unit came up with “some great re-defending plays” to regain its form as the eighth-best scoring defense in the country.
The Terps will bring that close game experience with them as the team enters the Big Ten tournament as the No. 1 seed this weekend.
“Penn State just sort of settled in and challenged us,” Cummings said. “It was good for us. I think we needed to kind of be pushed like that, and we handled it, so what more can you ask?”
