Maryland’s Jack Koras caused a turnover and ran up the field, flicking to Braden Erksa. The freshman continued his stellar night, finding a trailing Brett Makar.
The graduate student defender let the ball rip and sent a powerful shot into the back of the net, firing up the crowd and his teammates, leading to a mini mosh pit on the field.
No. 3-seed Maryland men’s lacrosse used that energy to survive a late comeback from No. 6-seed Rutgers, outlasting the Scarlet Knights 14-11 in the Big Ten quarterfinals.
The Terps will take on No. 2-seed Johns Hopkins in the Big Ten semifinals on Thursday.
“Crowd was awesome today,” coach John Tillman said. “We kind of looked at [it] as an opportunity to get back into Maryland Stadium after last week, just another opportunity to maybe walk off the field and feel a little different.”
Erksa continued his success in a career performance, finishing the night with a career-high six assists. The Big Ten Freshman of the Year made his presence known — especially in the second quarter — finding his teammates left and right enroute to a seven-point game.
But before Erksa got hot junior attacker Daniel Kelly scored a pair of goals. Koras and senior attacker Daniel Maltz each scored a goal to put Maryland up 4-1 early.
Rutgers could not find any rhythm except for midfielder Jack Aimone, who kept the Scarlet Knights afloat early on. Three of the junior’s first four shots found the back of the net, but then Erksa turned up the heat on the other end, dishing out assists on four-straight Maryland goals — the latter of which to Makar gave the Terps an 8-5 lead as they played one of their most complete halves of the season.
“Credit to [Erksa], kind of made eye contact with him,” Makar said. “He saw me trailing and had confidence in me to throw it back and just had an opportunity to take a good shot and was able to hit the net. I think it was kind of a juice play for us, definitely got excited.”
Maryland completely shut down Rutgers’ attack in the third quarter, as the Scarlet Knights took only four shots in the frame.
The Terps added to their lead in the third quarter when sophomore midfielder Dante Trader Jr. sent a long pass up the field and Maltz tapped the ball into the net, completing his fourth hat trick of the season.
Owen Murphy made his return to the first midfield line and made an impact after being banged up in the past several games. Murphy scored in the third quarter after Maltz drew the goalie out of the cage, leaving the net wide open for the junior.
After Maryland’s defense held Rutgers scoreless for over 22 minutes, Rutgers established a rhythm in the fourth quarter, scoring six goals in the final frame 15 minutes to make the game closer than it should have been.
Rutgers added a pair of goals 17 seconds apart early in the fourth quarter to cut Maryland’s lead to 11-7, but then Erksa continued adding to his stat sheet.
Erksa finally found the back of the net, scoring an over the shoulder shot to add another highlight to his career-game. He continued passing, finding sophomore attacker Eric Spanos for his sixth assist of the night. Spanos tiptoed along the crease before finding an opening to tuck the ball into the back of the net, pushing Maryland’s lead to 14-7 with 7:08 to go. Erksa’s six assists was twice as many as he’s had in any outing this season.
“This whole year I’ve kind of just been trying to get one percent better every day and my teammates since I’ve really gotten here have supported me like 100% and that means a lot to me,” Erksa said.
Rutgers closed out the game with four unanswered goals but the deficit was too much for the Scarlet Knights to overcome.
