FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — It’s a stretch — a big one — to suggest Maryland’s women’s lacrosse program came into the season without star power. No one returning three All-America picks from the previous year is devoid of proven quantities.
Yet it’s also fair to acknowledge there was not quite the same wattage at the center of these Terrapins. There isn’t a singular star as there was throughout the Taylor Cummings era, and no one player was going to replace the three-time Tewaaraton winner.
Maryland’s approach was to simply embrace exactly who it is, to spread the wealth on offense, remain disciplined on defense and win as much possession as it can to accent both of those strengths.
The plan worked well enough to produce an undefeated regular season. And it was on full display Friday at Gillette Stadium and the top-seeded Terps doubled up fourth-seeded Penn State 20-10 to reach the NCAA tournament final for the fifth consecutive year.
“The balance of our offense throughout the entire season kind of takes the pressure off each individual player,” senior midfielder Zoe Stukenberg said. “We know coming into this game we don’t need our No. 1 attacker to have seven goals to win this game. We just need everyone to play a good game and play together.”
Maryland got plenty of good games Friday. Jen Giles had four goals and four assists, Kali Hartshorn scored four goals and dominated draw controls in the first half and Taylor Hensh came off the bench to score four times.
Meanwhile, Stukenberg and attacker Megan Whittle both scored three times and goalie Megan Taylor stopped 10 shots as Maryland (22-0) advanced to Sunday’s title game against either Boston College or Navy.
“Making sure everyone is a threat, which we focused on for this game, that everyone is moving and opening up opportunities for each other,” said Giles, a sophomore who set a career-high with eight points. “It doesn’t matter if you start the drive because if they send the double we can swing around to someone else for the goal. Really, everyone attacking and everyone having that mentality.”
Katie O’Donnell scored four goals for the Nittany Lions (17-4), who were denied their first title game appearance since 1989. It marked Penn State’s second consecutive semifinal ouster, and was the most goals the Nittany Lions surrendered since yielding 20 to Maryland in a 2013 regular-season game.
Penn State ran decent offense when it had the ball in the first half. It just didn’t enjoy that luxury much. The Nittany Lions scored the first goal of the day; by the time they regained possession again, they trailed 4-1.
“We just didn’t have the ball enough today,” O’Donnell said. “The draw controls reflected the score almost exactly. You can’t win if you don’t have the ball, and we were on defense a lot today. I think Maryland was just making plays today.”
Indeed, a 22-10 edge on draw controls was Maryland’s most glaring statistical edge. It was a considerable turnaround from the teams’ regular-season encounter, when Penn State forged a halftime tie in part because of a draw control advantage before Maryland secured a 16-14 triumph.
“Last time we played Penn State, we were really lacked on the draw area of our game, so I wanted to make sure personally I could step up and help the team on the draw side,” Hartshorn said.
Possession is a reasonable explanation for Penn State’s offensive output. The Nittany Lions scored their fewest goals since a 9-8 defeat of Cornell on Feb. 25, and Maryland kept Steph Lazo (Penn State’s points leader) to just a goal and an assist and leading scorer Madison Carter to a single goal on four shots.
It doesn’t adequately cover Maryland’s ruthless offensive efficiency. With crisp ball movement, the Terps made 10 of their first 14 shots and never led Penn State cut its deficit to less than five in the final 40 minutes.
“They have a lot of scorers,” Penn State coach Missy Doherty said. “As coaches, we could have done a much better job of providing players a better scheme to defend them. I thought we did that in the regular season, and unfortunately in this game we didn’t give them the best plan for stopping.”
Reese was understandably pleased with how effectively the Terps got open throughout the semifinal, a contest that it many ways underscored the blueprint for Maryland’s success throughout this season.
Whittle (first team), Stukenberg (second) and defender Nadine Hadnagy (third) all landed All-America nods in 2016, but roles were considerably different for the Terps this year. Yet with seven 30-goal scorers, Maryland’s record remains unblemished since its Memorial Day weekend stumble against North Carolina last May.
“There were a lot of unknowns going into the season and a lot of people that questioned where Maryland would be — ‘Does Maryland even have the talent or the ability to make it back to the final four?’” Reese said. “These guys really buckled down and pulled together and created that identity for themselves.”
It’s an exaggeration to play up Maryland as a possible underdog. It isn’t. But it isn’t invulnerable, as a quarterfinal scare against Stony Brook suggested.
Six days later, the Terps got back to who they had to become post-Cummings — balanced, steady and not reliant on a single player —and the result was a drubbing that booked passage to their customary place on the final day of the season.
“We won the way we wanted to win, and I think that’s the big contrast between last week and this week,” Stukenberg said.