Defender Matt Dunn still hasn’t forgotten the Maryland men’s lacrosse team’s first-round loss in the NCAA Tournament to Cornell in 2013.
The Terps were the No. 6-seed overall, coming off a national-championship appearance the year before, but they fell to the Big Red, 16-8, in College Park.
Dunn remembers the disbelief in the locker room. The freshman looked around and saw the team’s seniors in tears. He realized he would never take the field with those players again.
Three years later, the Terps are the top-overall seed entering Dunn’s final postseason. After evolving into a staple on the Terps backline with his performance and leadership, Dunn doesn’t want his college career to end like his rookie season did.
“Just getting beat in the first round — that feeling, that disappointment,” Dunn said. “It’s something that’s driven me not to take anything for granted.”
Before the Terps tournament upset in 2013, coach John Tillman watched Dunn find an immediate role, playing in 14 games as a freshman. A year later, Dunn started all 17 games. He fielded 17 ground balls and caused nine turnovers.
Tillman also saw his defender develop his communication skills. Dunn could dissect plays and relay the calls to his teammates. It’s one thing to be vocal on the field, Tillman said, but Dunn directed the unit in a concise manner.
Now, Tillman calls the 6-foot-3 Loyola Blakefield product “a coach on the field.” When the Terps are sloppy in practice, defender Tim Muller said, Dunn will pause practice to get the team in order.
“He was as loud as anybody, even as a freshman, which is pretty rare,” Tillman said. “Matt’s ability to kind of get everybody on the same page is huge.”
That leadership has continued through his junior year — he earned third-team All-American honors — and into this senior campaign, as Inside Lacrosse tabbed him as a preseason second-team All-American.
Muller, who leads the Terps with 20 ground balls through 16 games, also credits Dunn for helping him acclimate to a full-time starting role.
When the Terps ran a defensive drill Tuesday, Dunn reminded Muller to keep his stick out in front of his body. When Dunn watches game film, he also reminds the junior to keep two hands on his stick, rather than doing a “one-handed” poke when playing an opponent.
“If I get scored on,” Muller said, “he’ll always keep my head up and tell me to look forward to the next play.”
The Terps followed that approach in the first round of the tournament during Dunn’s second season in red and black. The Terps again hosted Cornell, and at halftime, the Big Red held a four-goal advantage.
“We were just kind of like, ‘Is this going to happen again two years in a row?'” Dunn remembered.
But the Terps scored seven goals in the second half to earn an 8-7 victory, Dunn’s first postseason win as a Terp. He let out a sigh of a relief in the postgame locker room celebration.
The Terps veterans don’t often discuss their first-year slip with the team, but the Towson native admitted he puts an extra emphasis on this time of year.
With school wrapping up and many of the players’ high school friends returning home, “Your natural tendency is kind of to be like, ‘It’s almost summertime,'” Dunn said.
So Dunn makes sure his teammates prepare for their final exams, keep a fast pace in practice and do activities as a team — like watching the NCAA selection show in the Varsity Team House Sunday night — to stay focused with the NCAA Tournament a few days away.
“You can tell just like when it comes to playoffs now, he’s very into it,” Muller said. “He makes sure everyone else is into it because he saw how sad it was for the seniors to go out in the first round. I don’t think he wants that for himself or any other seniors.”
