Midfielder Kelly McPartland sprints to scoop up a lose ball after a faceoff during the No. 2 Terps’ 19-8 victory over No. 19 Towson on March 26, 2014.
Taylor Cummings failed to score a goal for the first time in a game this season at James Madison on Saturday, and the Terrapins women’s lacrosse midfielder went another 60 minutes without a goal last night against Towson.
Still, the No. 2 Terps recorded 10 first-half goals in two five-goal spurts. Midfielder Kelly McPartland scored five goals in the first half alone and finished with six on the game in the Terps’ 19-8 win on a cold spring night at the Field Hockey and Lacrosse Complex.
“We came out strong,” coach Cathy Reese said. “We fought hard for a full 60 minutes, which was nice to see despite the weather. I thought we had a good effort all over the field.”
Rather than jump-start the scoring with goals of her own, Cummings helped facilitate the offense with two first-half assists. She found attacker Brooke Griffin for the Terps’ first goal of the night and one of Griffin’s four goals.
The Terps used their strong ball movement for the rest of the night to shoot better than 50 percent, following up a 44.8 percent shooting performance against the Dukes.
“I thought our offense worked really well together tonight,” Reese said. “We were moving off-ball; we were creating a lot offensive opportunities and good looks.”
Despite Towson goalkeeper Kelsea Donnelly’s 13 saves and Cummings’ scoreless outing — who entered the game with a team high-tying 30 goals — the Terps were able to match their season high of 19 goals.
“It’s not that she has been playing bad in any way,” McPartland said. “She does everything all over the field.”
On the defensive end, the Terps (12-0) stifled the Tigers (5-5) early after allowing Towson to score the game’s first goal in the third minute.
Eventually, the Tigers produced more offense, though. Attacker Taylor Moore found a hole in the Terps defense with 15:30 left in the first half to end a five-goal run by the Terps and make the score 5-2. She continued to exploit the Terps defense, scoring two more goals in just more than two minutes.
With a 5-4 lead, the Terps shored up their defense, and they responded to the Tigers’ run with five unanswered goals of their own to end the half.
“We weren’t getting our slides there as quick as we wanted to, but we turned it around,” defender Megan Douty said. “Once we talked about that, we got back together and were able to stop them from doing that again.”
In the second half, the Terps used a balanced attack to open up a large lead, and seven different players combined to score nine goals after the break. The scoring outburst eventually resulted in a running clock after midfielder Jen Mendez scored with 12:40 remaining in the game.
The Terps cruised the rest of the way to a comfortable victory over an unranked opponent. Their stout defense kept Towson from mounting a second-half comeback, and McPartland’s offensive outburst gave the Terps plenty of cushion. Even without Cummings scoring a goal in the past two games, the Terps remain undefeated with five games left in the regular season.
“I don’t know that they are shutting her down,” Reese said. “In a team sport you are all working together to find who’s open, and when we are able to put up 19 goals against a team like this, we are moving the ball quite well.”
