The Maryland field hockey team is unseeded in the NCAA tournament and will play Wake Forest in Durham, North Carolina on Saturday.

The Terps last faced the Demon Deacons in 2013, winning the contest, 4-1.

Duke is the top seed in Maryland’s region. The Blue Devils will face the winner of the Stanford/Miami (OH) play-in contest.

On Friday, Maryland was in a position it hadn’t been in since joining the Big Ten in 2014: Its NCAA tournament fate was out of its control.

For the first time, Maryland failed to advance to the Big Ten tournament championship game. Its 3-2 loss to Penn State in the semifinals left coach Missy Meharg’s team wondering whether it had done enough to secure a spot in the national tournament.

Maryland learned it did enough.

“We want to make sure that even if things aren’t exactly going our way, we get back in the mindset of how things have been,” defender Carrie Hanks said Friday. “If and when we get the chance, we’re going to take it by storm.”

It will be Maryland’s 30th NCAA tournament appearance. The Terps are 57-21 in those contests.

Despite earning a chance to play in the tournament the last few seasons, Maryland hasn’t had much success. The Terps topped Massachusetts in the first round last year but fell to North Carolina, 3-0, in the second round.

Princeton ended Maryland’s season in the first round of the 2015 tournament, and Albany defeated the Terps in College Park during the second round in 2014.

Maryland hasn’t advanced beyond the second round since 2013, when it lost to Duke in the national championship game. The Terps are seeking their first title since 2011.

Nonetheless, the Terps remain confident they can compete with the best teams in the country. Maryland defeated six ranked teams and played four ACC opponents, which Meharg believes should prove beneficial in the postseason.

The Terps also responded after dropping three of four contests at the end of September by carrying a seven-game winning streak into the Big Ten tournament before losing to the Nittany Lions.

CORRECTION: Due to an editing error, a previous version of this story and its headline stated Maryland would host its first-round game. While the Terps will be the designated home team, the contest will take place in Durham. This story has been updated.