It hasn’t mattered for the last four seasons whether the game is in College Park, Maryland, Syracuse, New York or a tournament site. In March or May, Maryland has downed its not-really-a-rival rival Syracuse.

UMD, the program that spawned Gary Gait as a women’s lacrosse coach, has won the last eight meetings with his squad in the last four seasons. On Saturday, UMD earned its third-largest victory against the Orange in those eight meetings, 14-9, only smaller than a 13-7 Atlantic Coast Conference tournament beatdown in 2014 and a 19-11 regular season win the season prior.

After the matchup, Terps’ head coach Cathy Reese couldn’t offer up any reason for the dominance. UMD transfer Halle Majorana sat at the press conference and folded her arms, then rubbed her lip and then touched her hand to her forehead while looking down.

“Right now, I’m just — it’s a little frustrating we came up short,” Majorana said.

For the first time since Maryland (5-0) ended Syracuse’s (6-2, 1-0 Atlantic Coast) season in the 2013 NCAA semifinals, Syracuse led in the second half against the Terps. For the first time in any of the eight matchups, Syracuse beat the Terrapins at the draw circle, 14-11.

But a messy concoction of turnovers and lost draw controls quickly devoured the Orange’s 7-6 lead and then took seconds, thirds and fourths. The Terps stayed composed in the second half and had the answers the Orange didn’t. Maryland streaked away with another win.

“They gave us more than we could handle,” Gary Gait said, “… they played with confidence, they played with poise. You get up on ‘em, they just keep coming.”

After a behind-the-back shovel shot from Majorana tied the game, Kayla Treanor backed down her defender a little more than a minute later, took one step to the side and fit a shot between the pipe and goalkeeper Megan Taylor. The shot gave SU a 5-4 lead.

It lasted just 26 seconds.

First Maryland’s Taylor Hensh tied up the game off of a draw control win with 32 seconds left in the half. Eighteen seconds later, Jen Giles sliced through Syracuse’s defense before she slotted a goal and gave UMD a 6-5 lead.

“I think we need to settle in and focus on what we do,” Reese said. “… and when we did that, we started to find our openings, took care of the ball a lot better.”

Yet an Erica Bodt goal tied the game at six early in the second half. Then Treanor backed her defender down again. She took a light step around the defender again. Treanor slotted a shot between Taylor and the net again. Syracuse took a one-goal lead again.

This lead, though, only lasted one minute eight seconds before Hensh again tied the game.

The closest Syracuse got the rest of the contest was 9-8. Five of Maryland’s final eight goals came on free-position shots because Syracuse committed a foul. In the 20 minutes after Syracuse gained the lead, equivalent to a third of the game, the Orange turned the ball over eight times, almost half of its total turnovers.

“We were trying to get the ball back,” Gait said. “We were trying to make something happen. Instead of making the plays, we caused more turnovers for ourselves.”

With 14:18 left, Riley Donahue dropped a pass from Treanor and UMD’s Zoe Stukenberg scored to make the score 10-8.

With 7:28 left, a Treanor pass was intercepted and Cummings scored a free-position goal to extend UMD’s lead to 11-8.

With 4:28 left, Taylor Gait dropped the ball, UMD picked it up and Cummings scored a free-position goal 39 seconds later to give the Terrapins a 14-8 lead.

Earlier in the week, Gait said Maryland is the program others strive to be. On Saturday, it was clear Syracuse still has a ways to go.

After the UMD’s ninth goal, a Maryland fan chanted, “Give me a T.” The rest of the Terrapins’ fans gave him a “T” and spelled out the rest of “Terps.”

“One more time,” he shouted.

“Terps,” the fans shouted.

“One more time,” he shouted again.

On Saturday, the Terps handed Syracuse yet another loss.

Published on March 12, 2016 at 4:54 pm

Contact Chris: [email protected] | @ChrisLibonati