Preview: Maryland men's lacrosse looks to make statement in Border War vs. Virginia

John Gugs
2 minutes ago
4 min read

#10 Maryland 2-3 vs Virginia 3-3

Where: SECU Stadium

When: March 14th, 1PM

TV: BTN

Betting: Maryland -3, O/U 22.5 (DraftKings)

After bouncing back with a 13-8 win on the road over Delaware last Friday, the Terps will welcome the Virginia Cavaliers to College Park for the 99th edition of the Border War. While this game may not be as important as their past matchups that happened in the postseason, this could arguably be the biggest regular season matchup between the two squads in a long time.

Virginia is led by Lars Tiffany who is in his 10th season at Virginia with a record of 101-47. Virginia is off to a 3-3 start including losing their last game at home to Towson by a score of 13-9. Like the Terps, the Cavaliers are off to a slower start than expected and massively need this win to boost their resume and morale heading into the second half of the regular season.

On offense, the Cavaliers are led by McCabe and Brendan Millon, as well as Truitt Sunderland and Ryan Colsey. Statistically, the Cavalier offense is one of the best in the country scoring 14.3 goals per game. Of the team’s 86 goals, the Millon brothers, Sunderland, and Colsey account for 56 of them. Other than scoring, another thing the Virginia offense does well is move the ball. Of their 86 goals, only 22 have come unassisted. McCabe Millon leads the team with 23 assists while Brendan Millon, Sunderland, and Colsey combine for 27 as well. Virginia’s offense is very well balanced and it will be very hard for the Terps to slow their all of their scoring leaders down. The reason Virginia moves the ball so well is they have very good off-ball movement which has been a weakness for the Terps defense this season. If the Terps are able to fix their communication errors and not lose their matchups off-ball, it will be massive towards pulling off the win.

On defense, Virginia has struggled massively this season. The Cavaliers are giving up 12.2 goals a game this year which is second to worst among power conference teams in the country. A massive reason for their defensive struggles is goalie play. Jake Marek has started four games for the Cavaliers and has a 47% save percentage on the season. Marek only has one game this season where he was north of 50% which was in a 14-7 win over High Point. One bright spot for the Virginia defense this season has been forcing turnovers. Teams are turning the ball over 19.5 times a game against the Cavaliers including the Cavaliers causing 11.7 of those turnovers a game. As long as the Terps offense plays a clean game and is able to get tons of shots on goal, they could be able to keep up with the Virginia offense and pull out the win.

Three things to watch out for

How does Virginia handle the face-off battle?

When you are facing an offense like Virginia’s, the best defense is keeping the ball away from their offense. Henry Dodge leads the country in face-off win percentage winning 71.2% of his face-offs this season. Virginia has won 53.6% of their face-offs this season only winning the face-off battle in three of their six games. If Dodge as well as Jonah Carrier who is winning 56.6% of his face-offs this season are able to keep the ball away from the Cavalier offense, it will be massive for the Terps and be a big reason they can pull off the win.

How does the penalty situation play out?

Traditionally, the Terps are a clean defense that is very disciplined and does not commit lots of penalties. However, in the last two games the Terps have been man down seven total times. Luckily though, Virginia has struggled with penalties in a big way this season. Not including flags that were waved off, Virginia has committed 4.17 penalties a game and are giving up goals on 31.8% of their man down opportunities. If the Terps can go back to playing clean on defense and capitalize on the Virginia penalties, their chances at winning will increase massively.

How does the turnover battle play out?

Teams are turning the ball over 19.5 times a game against Virginia to start the season. One massive thing the Terps have struggled to do on offense is not turn the ball over as they have coughed the ball up 14.8 times per game while their opponents are only turning the ball over 9.6 times per game. Virginia only turns the ball over 16.17 times a game. Whoever wins the turnover battle will have a massive edge in the possession battle which is massive in a game against two struggling defenses and goalies.

IBG prediction: This might be a game between two struggling defenses, but this is a massive rivalry and both teams are coming into this game absolutely needing a win. Falling to 2-4 would mean the Terps would likely need to go undefeated in conference play if they want any kind of shot at an at-large bid in the NCAA tournament. Falling to 3-4 would be detrimental for Virginia since the ACC does not get an automatic bid into the NCAA tournament and the ACC is the toughest conference this season. This could be a game that sets the tone for the rest of the season for both teams. And because of this, I think it will be a lower scoring game than a lot of people think. It will be a very physical, very hard fought battle between two desperate teams. Thanks to the Terps advantage at the face-off dot, I think the Terps will be able to pull off a 10-8 win over the Cavaliers and get a massive morale boost heading into conference play next week.

The Terps are bringing a two game win streak over Virginia into this game and will absolutely need to extend it to three if they want a decent shot at making the NCAA tournament. The game is set to face-off at 1pm and will be airing on the Big Ten Network.

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