With the sun beaming, the sidelines roaring and the Terps’ energy flowing, the Maryland women’s lacrosse team bombarded Hofstra with 33 shots on goal on Saturday.

Behind a unit that finished with 65.5 percent of controlled draws and 14 ground ball pickups, No. 2 Maryland turned a commanding 11-4 first-half advantage into a 17-10 victory.

Senior captain and All-American Megan Whittle led the Terps with five goals and two assists. For one of her shots, Whittle prepared for a free position, patiently gripping her stick as she awaited the referee’s signal. When it arrived, Whistle attacked the goal, rifling a shot into the top-right of the net.

Whittle’s persistence on net as she dodged through double-teams and cut into the 8-meter was pretty much unstoppable. She converted more than a third of her shooting attempts.

Though the Terps won, coach Cathy Reese felt that the team has a lot to work on.

“We weren’t as sharp as we needed to be,” Reese said. “We were creating looks on cage, but just shooting it and not taking the best shots — maybe taking the first shot instead of the best shot.”

Reese attributed some of those setbacks to the lack of communication on the field.

“We need to continue to build the chemistry right now and we have to get people working on playing together, executing together for the opportunities that we have,” she said.

Even though the Terps want to get stronger offensively, attacker Brindi Griffin and midfielder Jen Giles did help the team win, each scoring three goals in the win. It was Griffin’s first multi-goal game of the season.

Reese lauded Griffin for assuming a leading role on the offensive end, with five goals this season.

“Brindi is progressively getting better and she becomes more confident. She was working the crease a lot today and taking advantage of opportunities,” Reese said.

“We love having [underclassmen] come on and really make a huge impact,” Giles said.

The Terps take on Syracuse next weekend. In that matchup, Reese hopes to see a more disciplined, complete performance than the one against Hofstra.

“We are definitely not where we need to be,” Reese said. “We have a lot of things to work on. That’s what this is all about — our focus needs to be on being better than we were today.”