Coach John Tillman didn’t want to dwell on the Terrapins men’s lacrosse team’s national championship loss in May.
So the day after the Terps’ 10-5 defeat to Denver in Philadelphia — the third time in the coach’s first five seasons in College Park his squad lost the title match — Tillman delved into preparations for the next campaign.
His squad is now at what Tillman considers the halfway point. The offseason is over. Preseason practices are winding down. The opening faceoff of 2016 is two days away.
Three months stand between the No. 4 Terps and what they hope is an NCAA Tournament run that ends the program’s 41-year championship drought. They want to move past last year’s shortcoming, yet they maintain many of the same goals.
“The biggest challenge has been [hitting] the reset button after last season,” Tillman said. “It doesn’t matter what our record was. This is this team, and this is this year, and you know, all we did was make our bullseye a little bit bigger.”
Midfielder Bryan Cole walks off the field after the Terps’ 10-5 loss to Denver in the NCAA title game at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia on May 25, 2015. (Alexander Jonesi/The Diamondback)
The Terps’ formula for earning a 15-4 record last season involved the nation’s top-ranked scoring defense. While the unit lost defender Casey Ikeda, a first-team All-American, to graduation and longpole midfielder Matt Neufeldt to injury, the Terps’ backline returns familiar faces.
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Goalkeeper Kyle Bernlohr enters his redshirt senior season as an Inside Lacrosse preseason first-team All-American and the reigning Ensign C. Markland Kelly Jr. Award winner, which is given to the nation’s most outstanding goalie.
Defender Matt Dunn, meanwhile, is a preseason second-team All-American and was the seventh overall selection in the Major League Lacrosse Draft last month. Defender Greg Danseglio is eligible after sitting out 2015 as a transfer from Virginia, too.
“It does take time for a team to find that right click, that right mojo,” Dunn said. “We definitely do have chemistry and a lot of experience returning, but we lost a great guy, a great leader in Casey Ikeda, so now it’s time for new roles to form.”
Perhaps the Terps’ biggest positioning question entering Saturday’s season opener against Navy comes at the faceoff X. Midfielder Charlie Raffa graduated tied for the third-most faceoff wins in program history, and Tillman anticipates using a rotation of players at the position to start the campaign.
The coach has also emphasized playing faster on offense with midfielder Pat Young (UMBC transfer) and attackman Tim Rotanz, who missed the season with vertigo, joining a Terps offense that featured attackmen Matt Rambo and Dylan Maltz, who both started 18 games as sophomores.
Tillman said one of the team’s issues on championship weekend has been not having the depth to prevail in two games in the three-day span.
After watching his squad during the preseason, though, he’s confident the Terps have a variety of players that can contribute from the get-go. The Terps boast the seventh-ranked freshman class, according to Inside Lacrosse, and three juniors — defender Mac Pons and midfielders Colin Heacock and Isaiah Davis-Allen — were named Big Ten Players to Watch.
Plus, the Terps’ six preseason All-Americans are tied for the most players of any team in the country.
“We’ve been really trying to play as a many people as possible,” Tillman said. “If you put guys out there that aren’t quite ready, it could cost you some games, so you’ve still got to win those games to get to where you want to get to. But in the back of your mind, you are still trying to build maybe that third midfield.”
Program alumni are hoping that chemistry and depth result in another deep postseason run.
Jake Reed, a goalkeeper on the 1975 title team, was in Philadelphia last Memorial Day to watch the team’s championship match along with many other former Terps. They spent the weekend telling old stories and attended a Terrapin Club pregame tailgate.
“We realize it’s really hard to win,” Reed said. “Just being as good as they have for the last couple of years is better than 99.9 percent of the teams.”
Still, Reed would love to watch the Terps this May at Lincoln Financial Field, again the site of championship weekend.
Tillman left that stadium in 2015 feeling this team “maximized” their season by playing in the sport’s final bout. While he has pushed himself and his players to move past the loss, Tillman wants the Terps to maximize 2016, too.
This time with a first-place trophy in tow.
“Knowing what a championship would mean to our alums, our school, our players,” Tillman said, “it continues to drive you.”
