Preview: No. 11 Maryland women’s lacrosse gets set for weekend matchup against Villanova

Don’t let Maryland women’s lacrosse’s 4-3 record fool you. It’s still one of the best teams in the country, and amid its easiest stretch of opponents this season, that record is likely to improve. 

The No. 11 Terps held their own in all but one loss — a 20-11 throttling by No. 2 Syracuse Feb. 17. Their other two losses were decided by just one goal, and both came against highly-ranked opponents: No. 6 Denver and No. 8 James Madison. 

Starting with their 22-4 win over William & Mary on Wednesday, they will play just one ranked opponent in four games — No. 17 Rutgers. They’ll take on Villanova (5-1) Saturday in the second leg of that stretch. 

The Wildcats are unranked and three of their wins have come by just one goal, but they’re 5-1 for a reason, and a win over Maryland would do wonders for their chances at a NCAA tournament appearance.

A young, selfless Villanova offense presents communication challenges for opposing defenses.

It averages the 10th most assists per game in the country. And unlike Maryland, who uses junior attacker Eloise Clevenger as a point guard of sorts, it doesn’t have one clear feeder. Clevenger has 50 percent of Maryland’s assists this season, while Wildcats junior attacker Kayla Gulmi — their leader in assists — has just 25.5 percent of theirs. Six Wildcats have four or more assists, compared to just three Terps.

Sophomore attacker Sydney Pappas has emerged as one of the better goal-scorers in the country. She was IWLCA Co-Offensive Player of the Week for the week of Feb. 28, splitting the award with senior attacker Libby May. She leads Wildcats with at least 10 shots in goals, shot percentage and shot-on-goal percentage, and has drawn 12 free position shots — eight more than the next closest WIldcat.

“Defender U” comes off its best performance of the year against William & Mary, allowing just four goals. But three of those goals came in the first quarter. The Terps need to clean up their slow starts against a much more formidable opponent in Villanova.

“We weren’t playing Maryland defense,” graduate student defender Marge Donovan said. “It was just a lack of communication, but I’m really proud of us and the way we turned it around.”

Despite Villanova’s talent, Maryland’s defense should have the schematic advantage. Its woman-on-woman style of defense pairs well against an offense that moves the ball as much as the Wildcats do.

They’re not likely to be given many eight-meter opportunities either. Villanova has just 33 attempts on the season, and Maryland has only allowed 23 — both abnormally low numbers.

Senior midfielder Shaylan Ahearn is one of the best draw specialists in the country; it’s rare that Maryland has the disadvantage in faceoffs. But Villanova graduate student attacker Caroline Curnal is a rare case where Ahearn is statistically outmatched. Curnal averages 8.83 draw controls per game, over two more than Ahearn and good for fifth among all Division One schools.

But as coach Cathy Reese has made clear throughout the season, the Terps aren’t concerned with stats. They have confidence in Ahearn to hold her own against anyone.

“She’s good at it,” Reese said. “She spends time on it. She studies it, she works on it, it’s her jam.”

Maryland’s offense showed out at a historic level against William & Mary. It was just the sixth time in 402 games under Reese the Terps scored at least 22 goals — and the first time they’d done so since a 25-goal explosion in the 2019 NCAA semifinals against Northwestern.

But in the grand scheme of the season, Wednesday was a fluke. Between their win over No. 10 Florida and their losses to Denver and James Madison, the Terps scored one or fewer goals in five of 12 quarters. While they take plenty of shots, their 41.6 shooting percentage is 56th in the country; not up to par for a team that competes for national titles on a yearly basis.

“A challenge for our team as a whole is resetting after every play,” Reese said after their win over Drexel Feb. 21. “Win the draw and score the next one, rather than just kind of rehashing and harping on what went on.”

But Donovan said on Wednesday that a big win helped the team’s confidence greatly. And stacking consecutive wins could help to continue building momentum.

“Just knowing that from one end of the field to the other, we can stop the ball, we put the ball in the back of the net,” Donovan said. “I’m really excited for the next game. One at a time.”