With about 16 minutes remaining in the Maryland women’s lacrosse team’s NCAA Tournament quarterfinals match with No. 12 UMass Sunday afternoon, attacker Megan Whittle stood near the Terps’ sideline.
Her left hand was on her waist with her stick in her right. She wasn’t moving.
After Whittle scored two of the Terps’ first three goals, the Minutewomen decided to faceguard her. UMass midfielder Brianna Sacks shadowed the leading scorer on the nation’s best offense for about the final 40 minutes of regulation.
The extra attention didn’t matter, though, as the Terps entered the intermission with a 13-1 advantage and played with a running clock for all but the game’s first 27 minutes.
Whittle’s four first-half goals helped the Terps prevail with an 18-3 victory at the Field Hockey and Lacrosse Complex to reach the program’s eighth straight final four.
No. 1 Maryland will face No. 4 Syracuse in a rematch of last year’s national semifinal as the Terps aim to clinch a third straight national championship next weekend in Chester, Pennsylvania.
“We’re at the moment in the season where every moment matters and is super special,” midfielder Zoe Stukenberg, who scored a career-high five times, said. “I don’t think the team needs too much pumping up.”
Whittle, the Big Ten’s Attack Player of the Year, scored for the first time at the 25:45-mark and added to the team’s momentum with another tally 16 seconds later. After the Minutewomen committed a foul, midfielder Taylor Cummings, who scored twice, passed the ball to an open Whittle after a quick restart.
The sophomore then outran three UMass defenders, part of the nation’s third-ranked defense, to deposit the ball into the lower-left corner of the net for a 3-0 lead. Whittle’s last tally of the day, her 68th of the season, came with nine minutes remaining in the first. The production surpassed her 67 goals as a rookie.
Midfielder Caroline Steele, who also tallied four scores, widened the gap to 11-1 with about three minutes remaining in the first, sparking a running clock for the rest of the game.
About 10 minutes into the second, UMass also opted to faceguard Steele, but the extra attention didn’t faze the Terps. After half time, coach Cathy Reese’s squad outscored UMass, 5-2.
“We were smart and feeding to the opportunities that were there, not throwing it in the middle just because,” Reese said. “We weren’t trying to get our girls in the faceguard active. I told them not to move.”
Maryland’s sixth-ranked defense held the Minutewomen, who entered the contest averaging 14.19 goals per game, to one first-half goal and limited UMass to seven shots in the opening frame.
“[The defense] made my job really easy,” goalkeeper Megan Taylor said. “They forced weaker shots. We knew [UMass] was going to shoot from a lot of different places all the time.”
Reese said the Terps spent Saturday watching the other quarterfinals games, though she wanted to make sure her squad didn’t look ahead. Stukenberg said Maryland had “the right mentality” to help the seniors end their careers undefeated in College Park.
“Everyone knew we weren’t doing anyone a service if we were going to look past this UMass team,” Stukenberg said. “We’re the number one team and it’s easy to fall into a trap.”
Led by Whittle and Stukenberg, the Terps made sure they didn’t fall victim to an upset against the Minutewomen, clinching another trip to championship weekend.
“I knew with the energy we had we were going to come out with our foot on the gas and we kept going, which was really nice to see,” Reese said. “It was a well-balanced attack for us.”
