In coach Missy Meharg’s eyes, the Maryland field hockey team would be doing No. 1 Connecticut a favor if it beat the Huskies on Saturday.
UConn (15-0) enters the weekend as the nation’s only unbeaten team, putting them in a position Meharg is familiar with. In her 29-year career, three of her teams have won 15 consecutive games to open the season.
“When I’m in that position, I’ve thought it wouldn’t be so bad to lose a game,” Meharg said. “And if you’re going to lose a game … you hope it’s to a top-five team.”
Maryland enters the weekend ranked No. 5, and if the Huskies beat an unranked Georgetown team on Friday, arriving in College Park undefeated, the players would gladly take that burden off the Huskies’ shoulders.
“We’re all excited to get the chance to play them,” forward Emma Rissinger said. “We’re confident in our skills and how we’ve been playing recently.”
Rissinger was the only member of this year’s team around the last time Maryland played UConn, though she was serving a redshirt season. That matchup came on Nov. 11, 2012, in the NCAA quarterfinals.
The Terps were the defending national champions and had won five of the past seven titles. It had been more than 25 years since the Huskies’ last championship. Maryland triumphed, 2-1, before falling to Princeton in the semifinals.
In the three seasons since, UConn has won two national championships and advanced to a semifinal. Now, the Huskies want to put the finishing touches on what could be their most successful four-year run in history.
“When you get in a mode [like that] and you step on the field, there’s a character about you,” Meharg said. “We’re talking about a great hockey team, and this great Maryland team gets to play them on Sunday in College Park.”
The Terps enter Sunday coming off their biggest win of the season, a 5-4 road win over then-No. 5 Penn State which gave them at least a share of their third consecutive Big Ten title.
“We know that we can beat those [top teams],” Rissinger said. “Even when we are ranked lower, we know we’re going to play our hardest. Rankings don’t effect how we’re going to play.”
Maryland celebrated its win over the Nittany Lions, but the team knows it didn’t play its best. The Terps gave up two penalty corner goals to Penn State after not surrendering one in its previous eight games.
But the Terps already had to correct their penalty corner defense earlier in the year after struggling with it in the first few games, so they don’t foresee it becoming a recurring problem going forward.
Maryland has gained confidence by working through its issue against several high-profile teams throughout the year. UConn will be the team’s third top-five opponent and sixth top-10 foe. The Terps’ strength of schedule currently ranks sixth in the country.
“We’ve had our ups and downs within the season and within games,” defender Carrie Hanks said. “We’re battle tested. We’ve played against good, strong teams.”
Still, UConn is a unique challenge and opponent. Though they’ve only played four teams ranked in this week’s top 20, the Huskies lead the nation with an average scoring margin (4.47), more than 1.5 goals better than the second-best team.
“We want this opportunity because we want to see how good we are, how well we can play,” Hanks said. “We can play to this potential.”
