As the Terrapin women’s soccer team approached the postseason earlier this month, coach Brian Pensky received an unlikely sort of congratulations from a colleague in the athletics department.
“I’m loving those first-evers,” Terrapin baseball coach Erik Bakich told Pensky, referencing the Terps’ historic season.
Even in a year ultimately cut short with their shocking second-round loss to Georgetown in the NCAA Tournament, one defeat wouldn’t overshadow the Terps’ season of breakthroughs.
The Terps earned the first No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament in program history. They topped North Carolina, the pinnacle of women’s soccer, for the first time in 32 tries. They won seven conference games, three more than the Terps ever had before, en route to their first-ever second-place finish in the ACC.
“It was a landmark season for our team and our program,” said Pensky, whose Terps finished the season 18-2-3, good for the best winning percentage in program history. “Maryland soccer is a hot name in the soccer world right now.”
The loss to the Hoyas has left the Terps with both motivation and questions entering next season, as they look to replace graduating midfielder Molly Dreska and defenders Caitlin McDowell and Colleen Deegan, among others.
The trio helped take the Terps from mediocrity to national-title contention, and their initial “leap of faith” to join the Terps, Pensky said, represented the toughness that the sixth-year coach has come to expect from his players.
“What these kids all have in common is an undying want to be good, an undying work ethic,” Pensky said. “All the kids wanted to be a part of building something, and showed belief in me. We’ve got kids on our team with a bit of a chip on their shoulders.”
While the memory of Ashley Grove’s season-ending penalty-kick misfire will not soon fade, it was far from the season’s defining moment.
Perhaps Deegan’s game-winning header to top then-No. 2 Boston College with eight seconds left on the clock was. It could have also been forward Jasmyne Spencer drawing a late foul against the Tar Heels to earn a free kick that forward Sade Ayinde buried for the game-winner. Or maybe it was midfielder Danielle Hubka’s overtime goal to again top the Eagles in overtime in the ACC semifinals.
However it happened, the Terps inserted themselves into the national picture this season. Pensky can already see the benefits in recruiting — “You’ve got to strike while the iron is hot, and it’s certainly hot right now,” he said — but with eight starters and the team’s top five goal-scorers coming back next season, the Terps don’t need to look past this season’s roster to build on their success.
“It didn’t end how we wanted it to,” Spencer said. “But as much as it stinks that we’re not still playing, we still go down as one of the best teams in program history.”
“I know we’ve come a long way, and the program’s really turned around,” McDowell said. “I’m still pretty upset that it’s over.”
So while the sport’s final eight teams continue to duke it out for the national title, Spencer and her teammates will go their separate ways until the spring. Then, the Terps will reconvene as they look to move forward to more first-evers — like a trip to the College Cup.
“The No. 1 seed spoke to our team’s body of work,” Pensky said. “What we did landed us as the No. 3 team out of 320 teams. It’s our job as coaches that our kids don’t lose sight of that.”
cwalsh@umdbk.com
