Goalkeeper Keith Cardona has three shutouts in three games this season.

Standing on the Terrapins men’s soccer team’s practice field in August, Will Swaim had a simple analogy to describe his college career.

“It’s definitely been a roller coaster,” the redshirt senior goalkeeper said. “It’s been up, and it’s been down.”

On Sunday, that ride went for a loop.

As his starters lined up for a second-round matchup against West Virginia in the NCAA Tournament, coach Sasho Cirovski called on freshman Keith Cardona to man the goal. Swaim, who’d been the starter throughout the season, sat and watched as the No. 5 seed Terps routed the Mountaineers, 4-0.

In his first action against an elite opponent, Cardona breezed to his third career shutout in as many games, finishing with just one save as the Terps ended a four-game winless streak, their longest rut in seven years.

“I thought Keith did awesome,” defender Taylor Kemp said after the Terps clinched their 10th straight Sweet 16 appearance. “He looked confident. I’m proud of him, and it felt good to get a shutout because it’s been a little while.”

In fact, it had been more than a month. The Terps last blanked a team Oct. 11, when they beat Adelphi, 2-0. The goalkeeper that night? Cardona. The former under-18 U.S. National Team member started against the unheralded Panthers to give Swaim some much-needed rest.

But Swaim’s benching Sunday wasn’t about fatigue. The 12-day break leading up to the game ensured that. It was about performance. The game-changing saves that marked the first half of the season had been absent in recent weeks.

Swaim amassed five shutouts through his first 12 appearances this season. He has zero in his past five. The Ellicott City native surrendered multiple goals in three of those outings, including a road loss to Clemson, which has the ACC’s third-worst offense.

“When you’re 0-2-2, you look to make a little change for the psyche of the team,” Cirovski said.

This isn’t new to Swaim.

He made 12 starts as a true freshman in 2007, surrendering less than a goal a game. His main competition in the net transferred the following offseason, leaving him the presumptive starter.

Then Zac MacMath, the top goalkeeping prospect in the country, arrived on the campus. Swaim fended off the eventual MLS first-round selection throughout the summer and preseason, and he started six of the Terps’ first 10 games that year. But he played inconsistently, and after surrendering three goals in an eventual 5-3 loss to an unranked Clemson squad on the road, MacMath became the full-time starter midway through the regular season.

With MacMath between the posts, the Terps went on a 16-game winning streak en route to the program’s third national title. Swaim redshirted the following year when MacMath returned, hoping to have a shot during his redshirt senior year.

This season, for the first time in his career, things were going according to plan. Swaim finished the regular season with the second-fewest goals allowed of any goalkeeper in the ACC, surrendering just two more than North Carolina goalkeeper Scott Goodwin. He seemed poised to help lead the Terps’ chase of a fourth national championship.

That may no longer be a possibility, however. Although Cirovski has not indicated who will start in the Terps’ third-round matchup against No. 12 seed Louisville on Sunday, Cardona seems to be the man of the moment.

“We put our faith in [Keith], and it’s paying off,” Kemp said. “He did well, and I expect him to do nothing but grow and get better from this point on.”

letourneau@umdbk.com