No. 14 Maryland men’s lacrosse handles Delaware, 13-8

Photo courtesy of Austin DeSisto/Maryland Terrapins.

After suffering three straight losses, No. 14 Maryland men’s lacrosse looked to avoid its worst start to a season in program history against Delaware. 

The Terps continued to struggle with issues that have plagued them all season, but a strong shooting performance and dominance from Brian Ruppel propelled Maryland to a much needed 13-8 victory. 

Coming into Friday night’s bout, the knowledge that a loss would’ve propelled Maryland to their worst start of the season since 1988 was on everyone’s minds. The Terps came out of the game with something to prove, scoring five straight goals for an early lead. 

That lead wasn’t as pretty as it seemed on the scoreboard. The first goal of the game came from a fortunate bounce in Maryland’s favor coming off the stick of Braden Erska. 

Against a tough strength of opponents in Syracuse, Princeton and Notre Dame, the Terps struggled in transition, turning the ball over and getting beat one-on-one defensively. Those struggles were seen against the Blue Hens. 

In the first half alone, Maryland turned the ball over 10 times – the Terps ended the game with 19. 

A lot of their turnovers came on the offensive end trying to force passes inside that weren’t there. The others occurred when Maryland tried to get out in transition – an area it struggled with once again. 

The Terps failed three clears throughout the game. Whether it was throwing unforced turnovers or struggling against the ride, Delaware found ways to force more problems, and Maryland struggled to maintain possessions. 

Terps head coach John Tillman emphasized during the week how opposing teams were taking advantage of the shot clock and wearing down the Terp defense. 

In previous games, opponents have found ways to take advantage of Maryland turnovers and turn them into long, exhausting possessions for the Terp defense. 

The Blue Hens did just that, finding ways to win one-on-one. They scored eight goals, passing their season average of seven. 

Maryland, before this matchup, was yet to keep a team under double digits all season. This was achieved tonight – keeping opponents under ten has been a staple for previous successful Terps squads. 

Despite the same struggles hanging over their heads, the Terps scored 13 points behind hat tricks from Erksa, Chris Lyons and Leo Johnson. 

After having 40 shots against Notre Dame and only putting 15 of them on the goal, Maryland’s offense was considerably more accurate against Delaware. The Terps took 31 shots, with 22 of them on goal. 

Brian Ruppel had his strongest performance in a Maryland uniform so far this season. He had 11 saves in the game off 19 Blue Hen shots on goal. 

Despite the remaining issues, The Terps got a much needed win. They’ll look to keep this momentum going into next week where they’re set to take on Virginia back in College Park.