Maryland women’s lacrosse takes season opener with offensive dominance over Virginia

No. 6 Maryland women’s lacrosse opened their season opener at SECU stadium with a 17-9 win over No. 12 Virginia on Saturday afternoon in a game where they never trailed.

The Terps (2-0, 0-0 B1G) faced off against the Cavaliers (0-3, 0-0 ACC) for their second top 15 matchup this season. The Terps offensive depth gave themselves the edge where they won the battles with total shots and shots on goal. Maryland had eight players in the goal column.

The Graduate attacker Keeley Block recorded four points on the afternoon which included three goals and an assist to help elevate the Terps’ offense. Block said how confident she was in her team’s ability to produce results on the offensive side of the field.

“Anyone can go on the field at any given moment and score,” Block said. “It’s really nice like having that much faith in your teammates and you know, looking to the right and left of you knowing like we have confidence in every single person on the bench… it’s really special and not a lot of teams have that.”

For a majority of the opening half, Maryland had trouble keeping Virginia out of striking distance. Whenever the Terps scored, Virginia would find a way to answer back to keep themselves in the game. Terps Head Coach Cathy Reese said her team adjusted at the half that pushed her team to clean up the small mistakes to create that separation.

“We had a tough second quarter defensively, but we came out of halftime and had an awesome third quarter on the offensive side,” Reese said. “We’re really working on that consistency as a team, but proud of our effort. I thought we did a really good job of both sides of the ball today of making plays.”

The Terps offense opened up more in the second half. In the third quarter, Maryland outscored Virginia 5-1 with two of those goals from freshman Ava Meyn.

“She’s really good at finishing the ball… I don’t know how she does it, but somehow, she just kicks around the goalie, she doesn’t play like a freshman,” Block said.

Block was not the only one making plays on offense. Graduate attacker Kristen Shanahan notched seven points on the afternoon with six assists and a goal. Shanahan spread the wealth across the field all game which highlighted the playmaking for the Terps offense.

“It’s easy to be an assister, it’s harder to finish the ball,” Shanahan said. “I love giving everybody the ball… I think it’s just like the vision, like you see your teammates stick for a second and knowing what teammate is going to do what.”

Maryland’s defensive efforts in the second half were another positive that helped pull away from the Cavalier’s. The Junior goalie JJ Suriano only gave up three goals in the half and recorded nine saves this game.

“She started slow… especially that second quarter, but she rebounded, and that’s what growth is all about in a season,” Reese said.