Preview: Maryland men's lacrosse looks to bounce back vs. Princeton

John Gugs
1 day ago
5 min read

Updated: 7 hours ago

#2 Maryland 1-1 vs #12 Princeton 0-1

Where: SECU Stadium

When: February 21st, 12PM

TV: BTN+

Betting: Maryland -2.5, O/U 23 (DraftKings)

After coming off a disappointing 11-9 loss to Syracuse on the road, their first road loss to Syracuse since 1927, the Terps will look to bounce back in their first home game inside SECU Stadium in 2026. The Terps will be welcoming the Princeton Tigers to College Park, a team the Terps have beat nine times in a row.

The Tigers are coming off of a disappointing loss themselves after they lost 13-7 at home to Penn State in their season opener. Matt Madalon has been the head coach at Princeton for ten years with a career record of 75-42. Like Syracuse and Gary Gait, heading into this game, Madalon has never beat the Terps with a career record of 0-7 in his ten years.

On offense, the Tigers lose their best player in Coulter Mackesy who finished the 2025 season with 63 total points. However, the Tigers return their next best five scoring leaders of 2025 including Nate Kabiri and Colin Burnes. Kabiri and Burnes have been together since their high school days at Georgetown Prep where they both had lots of success and it has translated to great chemistry and lots of success at the college level as well. Kabiri led the Tigers with three points in the loss to Penn State while Burnes was tied for second on the team with two. Coming into the season, Inside lacrosse had the Princeton attack unit ranked as the #1 attack unit in the country. However, along with a loaded attack unit, the Tigers’midfield unit led by Chad Palumbo was ranked as the #2 offensive midfield unit in the country. While they did not play well last weekend, the Terps defense will still have their hands full trying to slow down the Tigers offense this Saturday.

While the Tigers offense is very well known, their defense is not made up of many household names. But do not let that fool you, as coming into the season, the Tigers close defense was an honorable mention in Inside Lacrosse’s top five defensive units heading into the season. The best group on the Tigers defense is actually their short stick defensive midfielders. Their specialists unit (Face-off man, long stick midfielder, SSDM) was ranked as the #3 unit in the country just behind the Terps and North Carolina. Cooper Mueller and Jackson Green are one of the best SSDM pairs in the country and the Tiger defense leans on them to be a force as on ball defenders. Last week, while the Tigers gave up 13 goals total, that was after they gave up seven goals in the first quarter alone. In the last three quarters, the Tiger defense settled in and held a high powered Penn State offense to just three goals. A big reason for that was players like Finn Fox and Hunter Speiss stepping up from their close defense unit. If the close defense of the Tigers is able to cause turnovers along with the stout SSDM play the Tigers can get out of Mueller and Green, it could be another rough day at the office for the Terps offense who is coming off a game in which they struggled to find a rhythm.

Three things to watch out for

How does the face-off battle go?

Like the Terps, the Tigers have a very solid face-off man in 2026. While Andrew McMeekin went 51% from the face-off dot last season struggling at times, he can be a game changer for the Tigers when he is hitting on all cylinders. With an offense that is loaded like the Tigers, keeping the ball on the Terps side of the field will be massive for their success this Saturday.

How does the goalie battle go?

Both goalies are coming off of subpar performances last weekend. Brian Ruppel had just a 48% save percentage last weekend and struggled to make saves in the biggest moments. Ryan Croddick saved just 43% of Penn State’s shots on goal in the loss last week struggling to ever get in a rhythm. With two offenses that have as much firepower as they do, this game can very well come down to whichever goalie is able to come up clutch the most and make the key saves.

Who has the better start?

In both of their games, the Terps have come out sluggish and slow. The Terps have only managed to score two goals in the first quarter in both of their games and have a score differential of -2 in the first quarter. Princeton however, came out to an even worse start than the Terps have been as they were outscored 7-1 in the first quarter last week. In high leverage games with two great offenses, starting out fast will be massive for either team. If any team is able to jump out to a three or four goal lead, I like that team’s chances to pull out the win in the top 15 matchup.

IBG Prediction: Both teams are coming off of disappointing losses and will need to bounce back in a big way. Princeton dropped massively in Inside Lacrosse’s top 20 poll from two to 12. However, it was Princeton’s first game of the season and they simply had a terrible start to the game. Outside of the first quarter, the game against Penn State was fairly even as it was a 6-6 tie in quarters two through four. With this being the Tigers’ second game of the season, I do not expect them to come out to nearly as bad of a start this weekend. I do not think the Tigers are close to being a #12 team in the country and will be coming into this game with a chip on their shoulder to show last week was a fluke. However, I still like the Terps chances to pull out the win against the Tigers due to their advantage on defense and at the face-off dot. With a defense like the Terps have, they will simply need the offense to do just enough to win and I think the offense will do just that as I think the Terps will win this game 12-11 in overtime.

The Terps will look to make it ten wins in a row over Princeton and get head coach John Tillman to a 9-0 record over the Tigers in his career. The game is set to face-off at noon and will be available to be streamed on BTN+.

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