Maryland men’s lacrosse earns third straight win, beating Rutgers 11-6

Photo courtesy of Allison Mize/Maryland Terrapins

With 11 minutes remaining, Luke Wierman won a faceoff and ran straight to the net. The faceoff specialist scored from 10 yards out for his first goal of the season and spurred a four-goal fourth-quarter run to seal the victory.

No. 6 Maryland men’s lacrosse (8-3, 3-1 Big Ten) earned its third straight conference win, matching last season’s total.

The Terps defeated Rutgers (7-5, 1-3) 11-6 in SECU Stadium on Saturday night behind goalie Logan McNaney’s season-high 15-save performance.

The Maryland defense – with McNaney – caused six turnovers and held Rutgers to single-digit goals. The Scarlet Knights mustered a season-low six goals and have gone four straight games scoring eight or less.

“I thought Logan [McNaney], that was his best game so far,” coach John Tillman said, “I think he’s gotten more comfortable each week… If he continues to just keep moving in that direction, that’s going to be big for us going forward. We’re gonna need that.”

Daniel Kelly scored the lone first-quarter goal for Maryland but the Terps could only conjure six shots in the period and committed six turnovers. The Rutgers defense forced Maryland to take bad shots at the end of the shot clock.

After going down one, Maryland regained the lead behind goals from Kelly and Ryan Siracusa. The offense played a cleaner second quarter, committing three turnovers. Because of this, it was also a higher-scoring quarter.

Kelly started in place of Daniel Maltz for the second straight game. After not scoring last week, the senior attacker had a season-high three goals and added an assist.

“You do anything the team needs and that’s where they needed me the last couple game on attack. I’ll be ready for anything,” Kelly said. “My teammates make it easy. It’s an offense that we all pull together.”

The Terps scored five goals from four different players in the second. Braden Erksa scored after rebounding his miss in the closing minutes to help secure a two-goal halftime lead.

Wierman won just one faceoff in the first quarter but found success as the game continued. The senior won 11-of-21 including three in the fourth quarter.

The first goal of the third quarter came with just over three minutes left. Kelly scored his third goal of the night on a pass from Ryan Siracusa.

In the final minute of the quarter, Colin Kurdyla had a shot that appeared to hit the inside bottom post. However, it was not ruled a goal and there was no replay.

The Knights scored two unanswered goals between the third and fourth quarters to cut the lead to one. Despite the effort, the Maryland fourth-quarter run was too much to overcome.

Now the focus turns to next Saturday’s matchup against No. 2 Johns Hopkins (8-3, 3-0) in Baltimore. The winner would potentially secure the Big Ten regular season title.

“That’s why you go to Maryland, to play games like this,” Jackson Canfield said, “Just play the best we can and come out with a win is what we’re expecting.”