Immediately after Ohio State midfielder Trevor Hodgins ripped a shot at a tight angle into the net Sunday night, Maryland men’s lacrosse goalkeeper Kyle Bernlohr put his hands on his hips.
He paced out of the cage in a circle, ignoring the Buckeyes players celebrating behind him. He stood with the Terps defenders, but they didn’t say anything. Instead, Bernlohr looked up at the video board to see a replay.
Hodgins’s strike gave Ohio State a 5-3 lead less than two minutes into the second quarter, and Bernlohr had yet to record a save. The Terps had fallen into another first-half deficit, a theme present in all four of the team’s Big Ten games this season.
But similar to the other conference contests, Bernlohr and the defense buckled down. In limiting the Buckeyes to three goals across the final 43 minutes, the unit overcame its slow start and pushed Maryland to a 10-8 victory in the final regular-season game at Maryland Stadium.
“Felt like we were a little flat early on, especially defensively with our rotations,” coach John Tillman said. “But when that picked up, that was a big thing for us.”
One of Tillman’s points of emphasis entering each contest is winning the battle for ground balls. But in the first quarter of Sunday’s match, his team couldn’t escape those sitautions with possession.
Ohio State fielded eight ground balls to the Terps’ two in the opening 15 minutes. The Buckeyes also held a 4-3 advantage in the faceoff X as midfielder Will Bonaparte (2-for-4) ran off the field limping after each of his duels at midfield. Faceoff specialist Andrew Walsh replaced Bonaparte and went 1-for-3 to close the frame.
With the possession advantage, the Buckeyes kept pace with the Terps after attackman Matt Rambo opened the scoring and midfielder Connor Kelly scored on a pass from attackman Dylan Maltz to give Maryland a 2-1 lead with 8:30 to go in the first half.
A 4-1 Buckeyes run, though, erased the deficit and left the eighth-ranked Maryland defense searching for answers.
Tillman felt the Terps had generated smart shots on the offensive end despite those looks not ending up in the back of the net. Ohio State’s offense, meanwhile, scored on five of its first eight attempts.
“I mean, [at 5-3], I don’t think either coach feels good about that defensive effort,” Tillman said. “They had good looks.”
Soon, though, the Terps started converting their scoring chances. After midfielder Henry West pulled the Terps within one, Bernlohr dropped to his knee of the ensuing drive, scooping his first save of the match.
With the defense playing a man down after midfielder Bryan Cole knotted the game at five, the backline forced a wide shot before Bernlohr blocked the second attempt, drawing an interference call as he corralled the ball in the crease.
That allowed the Terps to transition to the other end of the field, where Cole netted his second of two scores to push the Terps ahead at the break. The redshirt senior’s score came in the midst of Maryland’s 7-0 run that propelled the team to a 10-6 lead entering the final 15 minutes. The Terps outscored the Buckeyes, 7-2, in the middle two quarters.
“We were down 5-3 in [the second quarter] and we still have 30-something minutes left,” Rambo said. “We knew we were going to have our opportunities, and I knew our defense was going to make huge stops.”
The Buckeyes tried to force the upset, scoring two goals early in the fourth quarter to cut the Terps’ advantage to two, but Bernlohr made three saves in the final nine minutes, the last block coming in the final 20 seconds.
As Ohio State midfielder Jarret Hassfeld, who netted two goals on the evening, unleashed a shot from 10 out, Bernlohr crouched down for the block. The ball popped out of his stick and caused a scrum in front of the crease, but the redshirt senior emerged from the crowd with possession.
After the remaining 10 seconds ticked off the clock, Bernlohr again met with his defense. This time, though, the players slapped his helmet and shoulders as the rest of the team rushed in for the celebratory huddle.
“They came out firing, and we kind of got caught back on our heels,” midfielder Isaiah Davis-Allen said. “[We] started to see a little bit more possession, and we got ground balls, and that helped us kind of swing back in the second and third period.”
