A fan in LeBard Stadium often rang a cowbell during the Terrapins men’s lacrosse team’s contest against Notre Dame Saturday night.
Sometimes, though, the clanking was drowned out by the soldout crowd’s cheers, gasps and — at one point from the Terps faithful — boos toward the referees. The nearly 8,000 fans on hand were enraptured in the back-and-forth action between the top-10 programs.
That ringing and hollering perhaps reached its peak toward the end of the fourth quarter when Notre Dame attackman Mikey Wynne juked his feet, leaving the Terps defense lost. As the unit slid to the left, Wynne shifted to his right, unleashing a shot past goalkeeper Kyle Bernlohr.
Wynne’s laser broke the 4-4 tie — the third stalemate in the Pacific Coast Shootout in Costa Mesa, California. The Terps couldn’t muster another equalizer, though, as the No. 1 Fighting Irish piled on four goals in the final two minutes ad 30 seconds of the contest to top the No. 8 Terps, 9-4.
The defeat marked the Terps’ first loss to the nation’s No. 1 team in coach John Tillman’s four tries in his six-year tenure in College Park. Coupled with last Saturday’s loss to Yale, the Terps’ inability to fend off Notre Dame’s late surge left them to cope with back-to-back losses for the first time since 2012.
“It was a playoff environment, a great crowd,” Tillman said. “Notre Dame’s an awesome team. They’re very talented, very competitive, tough. It’s hard to get goals on them, but on the other end, it’s hard to stop them.”
The Terps (1-2) appeared poised to give the Fighting Irish (4-0) their toughest bout yet. While Notre Dame won each of its first three games by an average of six goals, the teams entered halftime tied 2-2.
Coach Kevin Corrigan’s squad opened a 1-0 lead five minutes into the game, but midfielder Lucas Gradinger responded.
After missing the Terps’ Pacific Coast Shootout win a shoulder injury last season, Gradinger, who grew up about an hour south of Costa Mesa and expected to have more than 100 family members and friends in attendance, delighted his hometown crowd. He spun from about five yards and deposited a feed from midfielder Pat Young.
“To get Lucas Gradinger home,” Tillman said, “it’s really special.”
Gradinger’s point came while the Terps defense held Notre Dame scoreless for about 23 minutes. In that stretch, attackman Matt Rambo gave the Terps their only lead of the night.
The tide turned in the third quarter when Wynne scored 45 seconds into the frame. Then midfielder Trevor Brosco pushed the gap to 4-2.
On Brosco’s connection, one referee waived off the shot while another official raised his arms for the goal. When the score stood, Bernlohr shoved down his fists in anger, pleading with the referees in the crease before longpole Mike McCarney pushed him away.
Around the same time, the Fighting Irish added pressure against the Terps’ clearing attempts. Tillman’s team drew two failure to advance calls in the second half when they couldn’t crack rides to their attacking third in time.
“They did a great job in the middle of the field,” Tillman said. “You struggle to score on them, but when you lose possessions like that — you don’t get many — it makes it that much harder.”
The Terps took advantage of Notre Dame’s miscues — midfielder Bryan Cole capitalized on a point-blank look after catching the Fighting Irish offsides, and midfielder Isaiah Davis-Allen laced in a shot during a possession the Terps cleared without facing a press.
But Wynne’s go-ahead point put the Terps’ comeback hopes in jeopardy. And three goals in the final minute squashed Tillman’s squad’s chances of another No. 1 upset.
“Playing a great team like Notre Dame is going to make you better,” Tillman said. “You never like to lose, but that’s the No. 1 team in the country, and we battled them for 60 minutes.”
