Landon Carr, Jesse Bernhardt and Niko Amato wait in line for the postgame handshake after falling to Loyola, 9-3, in last season’s national championship.
John Tillman shouldn’t have to do much to motivate the Terrapins men’s lacrosse team this season. He won’t need to beg his players to stay focused in the film room or threaten them with reduced playing time. And the third-year coach certainly won’t have to muster up heart-wrenching speeches to inspire his squad on game day.
Recent memory will take care of that for him.
The Terps have reached the national championship game in each of the past two years. But both times they stumbled on the sport’s biggest stage, falling one win short of the program’s first national title since 1975.
“Losing the last two years in the national championship adds something extra in the back of your mind,” said senior midfielder Kevin Cooper, who is expected to start for the Terps when they host Mount St. Mary’s tonight in their season opener. “You always think about how it felt after those games, and it just motivates you to want to get back there.”
There’s reason to believe the No. 2 Terps have enough talent to make a third straight title-game appearance. Last year’s national runners-up return eight of 10 starters and boast seven preseason All-Americans.
The Terps also bring back all the key components of last season’s No. 9 scoring defense. All-ACC goalkeeper Niko Amato and All-American long pole Jesse Bernhardt, who both played major minutes in each of the team’s national championship losses, headline the experienced unit.
The offense, though, isn’t quite as solidified. Graduates Joe Cummings and Drew Snider accounted for more than 28 percent of the team’s goals last season, leaving a significant void for the Terps to fill.
Still, they seem confident they’ll be able to make up for the departed goal-scorers. In addition to returning two starting attackmen — Owen Blye and Billy Gribbin — who tallied more than 20 goals apiece last year, they’ll rely on a talented midfield.
That midfield includes four returning contributors, and it gets an added boost with the return of Jake Bernhardt, Jesse’s brother, who redshirted last season after suffering a shoulder injury.
But the team’s talent isn’t the only reason Tillman is excited to finally hit the field at Byrd Stadium tonight. With Blye and the Bernhardt brothers returning as captains, Tillman feels confident in his team’s leadership.
“It’s a luxury having three captains returning; it’s a very rare thing,” he said. “Their passion is great for the younger guys to see.”
The Terps’ leaders can do more than set an example. They can tell the younger players what it takes to reach a national championship. And how it feels to lose it.
“They weren’t in that game. They hear about it, but they weren’t there to be in the locker room after and feel the disappointment,” Tillman said of his team’s 14 freshmen. “I think they have to rely on the leadership of the older guys to explain how to go that far and what it meant.”
But even with leadership, returning talent and Inside Lacrosse’s No. 6-ranked incoming freshman class, reaching another national championship game won’t be easy.
Seven of the Terps’ 13 scheduled games are against opponents ranked in the top 20. That only adds to the mounting pressure on a team dealing with heightened expectations after back-to-back seasons of NCAA tournament success.
Yet the Terps don’t seem to mind.
“As an athlete, you always want to have that pressure on you,” Cooper said. “I feel like I play a little bit better when the pressure’s on.”
And why wouldn’t the pressure be on this squad all season? Sure, the Terps will feel pressure to live up to the No. 2 ranking, win the ACC and finish with another impressive record. But after ending each of the past two seasons in such devastating fashion, the Terps have higher aims.
“Obviously not being able to close it out the last few years is difficult,” Jesse Bernhardt said. “We’re thinking about competing for a national championship.”
sportsdbk@gmail.com
