No. 10 Maryland women’s lacrosse vs. No. 18 Penn State preview

No. 10 Maryland women’s lacrosse (12-3, 4-0 Big Ten) travels to University Park on Thursday to take on No. 18 Penn State (10-4, 2-2 Big Ten) in a battle with implications at both a conference and national level.

The surging Terps still have a shot at the top seed in the Big Ten tournament. They’re riding a nine-game win streak and are tied for first with No. 2 Northwestern at 4-0 in conference play.

If Maryland wins and the Wildcats defeat Ohio State on Saturday, the winner of the schools’ April 22 regular-season finale will be crowned Big Ten regular season champion.

On a national level, a win will help the Terps’ case to host a regional in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Seeds four-to-eight host the first round, while the top three earn a bye. Maryland would most likely need to win out and have multiple major top-10 upsets for it to get a top-three seed.

Meanwhile, Penn State will finish with its first winning record in a full season since 2017, when the Nittany Lions went 17-4 and reached the Final Four, losing to the eventual national champion Terps. 

Penn State has only played four ranked opponents this season, going 2-2. But outside of a 19-9 loss to Northwestern, the average margin of victory was just 2.67 goals as the Nittany Lions played close contests in the other three games. 

They’ve been in dogfights all year, as coach Missy Doherty — a teammate of Terps’ coach Cathy Reese on the 90’s Maryland teams — leads a gritty, resilient group.

“Their team goes hard,” Reese said. “They’re aggressive, they’re physical, they can drive hard one on one, so it’ll be a challenge for us.”

Penn State’s offense thrives on volume. It’s not an efficient unit — its .369 shot percentage is last in the Big Ten — but it takes the second-most shots per game in the conference.

Expect to see a lot of junior midfielder Kristin O’Neill from the Nittany Lions. She’s their overwhelming leader in shots with 121; second is junior attacker Gretchen Gilmore, who’s taken 64.

The Terps’ defense is coming off a Saturday performance against Ohio State that was arguably their best of the year. They held the Buckeyes to just 16 shots, and could benefit from another shot-stifling outing Thursday against the shot-heavy Nittany Lions offense.

Maryland’s defense is as talented as any group in the country. But it entered the season with a plethora of new faces, and needed time to gel.

It’s improved every week as the season goes on, and now looks like a formidable unit no opponent wants to face in the postseason. One of its new faces, graduate student defender Marge Donovan, attributes their growth to strengthened communication.

“As a whole, we’re better at listening to each other, knowing each other’s tendencies, and trusting each other more,” Donovan said.

Just like the Nittany Lions, the Terps also like to let the ball loose; they have not allowed an opponent to outshoot them all season. But what makes their offense the second-best in the conference is they pair volume with the Big Ten’s third-highest shot percentage.

Maryland’s offense has been nothing short of stellar since an early-season rough patch. It’s scored at least 13 in each of the last nine games, and every contest is a team effort. Nine Terps have 12 or more goals this season.

The growth of two junior attackers — Eloise Clevenger and Chrissy Thomas — has taken the Terps’ offense to a new level. Clevenger and Thomas are two of the five Terps with at least 30 points this season.

Senior attacker Hannah Leubecker and freshman midfielder Kori Edmondson are both incredible dodgers, and the entire offense cuts well. But Maryland didn’t have double-digit assists in a game until last Wednesday, which the Terps have now done twice in a row.

“We’ve seen a lot of zones this year…and every team plays it a little different,” Reese said. “I love the way our offense is learning to read and adjust and find openings in it.”

Clevenger had an all-time performance against Ohio State on Saturday. She set the program record with eight assists, the most in a single game by any player in the country this year. It won her Big Ten Offensive Player of the Week honors, despite missing Wednesday’s contest with a personal matter.

But Maryland struggles with turnovers at times, and the Nittany Lions force a lot of those. The Nittany Lions’ 10.64 caused turnovers per game is the conference’s highest mark.

“We have these moments where we have greatness, and then these moments where we just had some lapses,” Reese said. “We want to be the ones that are sticking to our game plan.”

While it’s easy to look at the big picture, or ahead to a daunting foe in Northwestern, Maryland is dialed in on the task at hand.

“As Cathy always says, the most important game is the one we have next,” Donovan said. “We’re so excited to play.”