The Terrapins lacrosse team trailed North Carolina for 50 seconds after the Tar Heels scored the game’s first goal.
Then, Terps midfielder Connor Kelly tied the game with an unassisted goal. By the end of the first half, he’d notched a hat trick and two assists, finishing the game with a career-high six points.
Thanks in large part to Kelly’s performance, the No. 6 Terps never trailed again in an 11-8 victory over No. 12 North Carolina that extends their winning streak to four games.
Saturday marked the Terps’ first game in 10 days, and the team thought the extra time off helped them against the Tar Heels.
“Coach [John] Tillman always does an awesome job of breaking up practice and off time,” midfielder Isaiah Davis-Allen said. “That’s all to his credit.”
The Terps looked the better-rested team in the second half, pulling away from the Tar Heels and taking a five-goal lead in the game’s final minutes.
“To beat a really good, athletic team that we have a lot of respect for like North Carolina, you need to play 60 minutes,” Tillman said. “Across the board, I thought the guys played really hard.”
With 16 seconds remaining in the second quarter, Terps attackman Matt Rambo scored a goal assisted by midfielder Isaiah Davis-Allen. It gave the Terps a 6-4 lead entering the break and it was their first goal that wasn’t scored or assisted by Kelly.
“We had great momentum coming in, we all wanted to play our game,” Kelly said. “When we were out there, things opened up. Everybody was moving the ball and our pace was great.”
The game remained tight after halftime, but the Tar Heels never got closer than two goals over the final second half.
“In the second half, we were a little bit more patient on some of our opportunities; we just got so rushed early,” Tillman said, crediting the Tar Heels’ defensive effort in the game’s early stages.
Rambo gave the team its biggest lead at 11-6 with less than two minutes to go in the game. The junior finished with a game-high four goals, tying the best mark of his career.
“He’s pretty dangerous obviously from anywhere, but [today we had him] up top and kind of [let] him go,” Tillman said. “It just schematically kind of worked out that way.”
The Tar Heels (5-4) had done an impressive job of preventing opponents from clearing the ball entering Saturday. But the Terps were able to go 14-for-16 on clears, and Tillman’s eyes widened when a reporter asked about how he’d prepared his team during the week.
“We worked on it a lot,” Tillman said twice after chuckling. “I thought our scout team did a really good job of pressuring our guys.”
The Terps also executed well on defense. Tillman’s team surrendered a pair of goals with less than a minute to go and the game nearly in hand, but their defense was stingy for most of the afternoon.
“[Associate head coach Kevin] Conry does a great job with the defensive gameplan… [North Carolina] will always have six dangerous guys out there,” Tillman said. “It’s [about] everybody being organized, sliding when you need to slide, and then recovering really fast.”
The Tar Heels entered the game with the nation’s No. 7 ranked offense, averaging 13.5 goals per game. But goalkeeper Kyle Bernlohr finished with nine saves on the Tar Heels’ 17 shots on goal to limit them.
The stout defensive performance paired with Kelly and Rambo’s attack pushed them past their longtime ACC rival.
“That was 10 days of work,” Tillman said. “I give our guys a lot of credit.”
