SPARKS, Md. — Drew Snider buried an outside shot with 3:42 left to play to help the U.S. men’s national team beat Maryland, his alma mater, by a 10-9 score in the opening game of the Team USA Fall Classic.
Maryland coach John Tillman said that he wanted his team to help the U.S. team prepare for next summer’s Federation of International Lacrosse (FIL) World Championship in Netanya, Israel, and his Terps, the defending NCAA champions, were up to the task before an overflow crowd on a picture perfect night at US Lacrosse's Tierney Field.
The U.S., playing with a split squad roster, dominated out of the gates, scoring the first four goals of the game and taking a 5-1 lead after the first quarter behind a pair of goals from Rob Pannell. Jordan Wolf’s goal less than two minutes into the second quarter gave the U.S. Blue Team its biggest lead of the night at 6-1, but Maryland then scored three straight goals and trailed just 7-4 at halftime.
Back-to-back goals by Matt Danowski midway through the third quarter put the U.S. up 9-5, but then Maryland closed the fourth quarter with three straight goals. Jared Bernhardt, the MVP of last summer’s FIL U19 World Championship after helping lead Team USA to the gold medal, scored the first two and then Connor Kelly, a member of the U.S. team who will switch uniforms to play against Towson tomorrow, scored with 55 seconds left to cut the U.S. lead to 9-8.
The score remained that way until midway through the fourth quarter when Maryland’s Nicholas Brozowski’s pass into his team’s offensive zone missed the intended target, but then bounced and skipped over the shoulder of U.S. goalie Jack Kelly to tie the game 9-9 with 9:09 to play.
That set the stage for Snider’s game winner. The midfielder was set up out top in front of the goal and took a pass from Paul Rabil from the wing and then ripped home the go-ahead goal.
Greg Gurenlian won the ensuing faceoff and Maryland never touched the ball again in the final three plus minutes. The Terps were whistled for an offside violation with 2:17 to play, and after the U.S. failed to convert on any of its shot attempts, they went into a stall and ran out the clock for the victory.
Pannell, Danowski and Wolf all had two goals for Team USA and Rabil had a goal and two assists. The U.S. team had a huge advantage on faceoffs with the trio of Tom Kelly (5-of-7), Greg Gurenlian (4-of-6) and Trevor Baptiste (6-of-10) combining to win 15-of-23.
Bernhardt led Maryland with three goals and an assist and Kelly had two scores.
The Team USA Fall Classic continues on Sunday, beginning with a special 9-11 Memorial Game featuring first responders from the New York/New Jersey region playing a team of first responders from the Baltimore/Washington D.C. metro area at 11:15 a.m. That game will be followed by the U.S. White Team playing 2017 NCAA semifinalist Towson at 2 p.m. Following that game, Towson will play an abbreviated scrimmage against Team Israel.
Tickets are $10 and can be purchased at shop.uslacrosse.org or at the door. The U.S. – Towson game will be streamed live at uslacrosse.org, on the US Lacrosse YouTube channel and on the US Lacrosse Facebook page.