Terrapin men’s lacrosse face-off specialist Bryn Holmes acknowledged at the beginning of the season that the team that wins the face-off battle often wins the game.
But luckily for Holmes, the Terps have bucked that trend in their first two top-20 match-ups. Against then-No. 13 Georgetown on Feb. 27 and against No. 9 Duke on Saturday, the Terps lost to their rivals at the face-off X but beat them on the scoreboard.
The No. 6 Terps (3-0, 1-0 ACC) have won a paltry 46.2 percent of their face-offs, leaving them No. 39 in the country in the statistic and behind every opponent on their schedule this season except unranked Fairfield. Losing face-offs, which start every quarter and occur after every goal, costs the Terps valuable offensive possessions, yet the team has remained unscathed so far. A high-powered attack and solid transition play has been enough in their narrow victories against Georgetown and Duke.
“A win’s a win,” goalie Brian Phipps said. “We’ll take it no matter what. The only stat category we care about it is the goals and goals against.”
Still, the Terps can’t expect to pull off nail-biting wins every week. And if they don’t improve from the X, their struggles could come back to haunt them.
Their face-off troubles nearly cost them a win Saturday. In last weekend’s Konica Minolta Face-off Classic at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore, the Terps went just 8-for-25 on face-offs. Their face-off losses down the stretch helped the Blue Devils make a three-goal run to force overtime before the Terps prevailed 11-10.
Duke’s C.J. Costabile especially baffled Holmes and Jake Bernhardt, the Terps’ other main face-off specialist. On face-offs, players typically try to direct the ball away from their opponents and to a spot where either he or his teammate can easily pick it up. Costabile used a different tactic.
“They pretty much wanted Costabile to pull it out and just turn it into a ground ball so it would be just a giant scrum in the middle of the field,” Bernhardt said. “When that kid came in, he really neutralized us on the face-offs and the ground ball game.”
Costabile went 13-for-18 and collected nine ground balls, while Holmes and Bernhardt combined for just eight face-off wins and five ground balls.
“There’s two stats that are kind of tied together, the face-offs and the ground balls,” coach Dave Cottle said. “Usually if you win the face-offs, you win the ground balls.”
Cottle emphasized the importance of picking up ground balls during the Duke game.
Thanks in part to 15 saves from Phipps, the Terps held the lead and kept Duke at bay most of the second half, though the Blue Devils held the advantage in face-offs, ground balls and shots.
But in the final five minutes of the game, Duke used their face-off wins to grab momentum and offensive opportunities, scoring three goals in the last 4:22. They also won the face-off to start overtime and held the ball for two minutes before the Terps got the ball and scored to avert disaster.
“Facing off this week was obviously tough,” Holmes said. “Our guys fought hard. I mean, I fought hard every time. I was just trying to give it my all and do the best I could.”
Holmes’ numbers are particularly worrying. The senior, the team’s No. 1 contributor at the X, takes 65 percent of the face-offs but has won just 47.1 percent, placing him at No. 46 in the country.
Though he also struggled last year against Duke, he still stood at No. 3 in the nation in face-off winning percentage after the first three weeks of the season. This year, after winning his first eight of the season at Bellarmine, he has gone 16-for-43.
Bernhardt hasn’t been much better, holding a 47.8 winning percentage. The players on the wings, who help pick up the ground balls off the face-offs, also must pick up their games.
Despite their fast start, the Terps know gaining some consistency on face-offs is the key to long term success.
kyanchulis@umdbk.com
