Preview: No. 6 Maryland men’s lacrosse continues its homestand against Rutgers

Photo Courtesy of Mackenzie Miles/Maryland Athletics

No. 6 Maryland men’s (7-3, 2-1 Big Ten) lacrosse hosts Rutgers (7-4, 1-2) for its regular season home finale on Saturday at 7 p.m.

The Terps are coming off a narrow win against Ohio State. Eric Spanos carried the load offensively, scoring four goals including back-to-back in the fourth quarter to seal the win. 

The performance earned the midfielder Big Ten Offensive Player of the Week, his second time this season.

Maryland won more faceoffs and grabbed nine more groundballs. Faceoff specialist Luke Wierman won 13 of 18 faceoffs including four of five in the fourth quarter.

Ajax Zappitello was one of three Maryland defenders with two caused turnovers and added two groundballs. The defense held the Buckeyes’ leading scorer Alex Marinier to zero goals on four shots.

Despite the victory, it was Maryland’s lowest-scoring output of the season. Rutgers is coming off a low-scoring win of its own. The Scarlet Knights earned their first conference win last Sunday against Michigan, 9-7.

“We kind of knew the Ohio State game was going to be very slow tempo, limited opportunities, limited possessions,” coach John Tillman said, “Rutgers will play super fast but then they will look for early offense and look for transition… This tempo will be faster which means more possessions.”

The two squads faced off twice last season including a matchup in the Big Ten Tournament quarterfinals. Maryland won both matchups with a combined score of 25-19.

Goalie Cardin Stoller’s 19 saves and .731 save percentage lifted Rutgers to the win. The performance earned Stoller Big Ten Freshman of the Week honors for the fourth time this season. The redshirt freshman allows 10.62 goals per game, the 28th-best mark. 

The Knights have struggled offensively and have not scored double-digit goals in a game since March 16th. Rutgers averages just over 11 goals per game which ranks in the bottom half of Division I.

Senior Ross Scott – coming off a three-goal performance – leads the team in assists and points.  Fellow senior Shane Knobloch leads the team in goals and is just one of two Rutgers players with 20 or more goals this season.

“If you have a really good and really fast player like Scott, you’ll run some picks so that your defenders both have to navigate that,” Tillman said, “Ajax [Zappitello] is familiar with him, he’s played him a long time. It doesn’t make it any easier but it does provide a little bit of familiarity.”

Utah transfer Cole Brams will take faceoffs who sports a .541 win percentage this season. Brams struggled in last week’s matchup, winning just 9-of-20. It was the third time this season the senior had a sub-.500 percentage.

A third conference win for the Terps would tie last season’s total and keep them in contention to overtake Johns Hopkins (8-3, 3-0) for first place with just two weeks left in the regular season.