By: Cody Wilcox
Nearly nine minutes of play had transpired Tuesday and a total of nine turnovers by both teams ensued before head coach Matt Karweck and the Colgate Raiders called their first timeout of the game.
No. 3 Maryland (4-0) and No. 16 Colgate (2-1) both started the game sloppy and out of sync, but it was the Terps who came out firing on all cylinders after the timeout at the 5:24 mark, scoring four goals in the remaining first quarter time and cruising to an 11-6 victory.
“I thought both teams were super sloppy in the first half,” Maryland head coach John Tillman said.”If you bought a ticket, after the first ten minutes, you might have wanted a refund. And, even talking to the Colgate coach, he said the same thing. Just neither team really could find a rhythm.”
The tandem of attackman Jared Bernhardt and midfielder Bubba Fairman were the first to find a rhythm on the day, allowing Fairman to bring his season goal total to five at the 4:40 mark in the first quarter.
But it was Bernhardt who ended up lighting a spark for Maryland’s offense following his assist to his sophomore teammate and his buzzer-beating goal at the end of the first quarter, which put him in the record books as the 55th Terp all-time to reach the milestone of 100 points.
After committing a total of four turnovers in the first quarter, the Terps calmed down in the second and cut their turnover total in half while their offensive production continued to flourish.
Five Terps contributed to goals in the first half for the Terps, including midfielder Logan Wisnauskas and Bernhardt, who had a hat trick apiece, as Maryland scored their highest number of goals in a half this season. They entered halftime up 9-3.
“The first half, it was just like playing a little pickup basketball– just a little back-and-forth,” Bernhardt said. “I think once guys kind of got settled down– it’s also a little weird vibe being midweek– but I think once we kind of got settled down in that second half that really helped us in the offense.”
The second half began slow for both teams as nobody was able to score until a Maryland goal by Bernhardt after about ten minutes had passed in the quarter. But the Terps controlled the ground balls, with a 35-22 advantage and limited the amount of Colgate shots on goal to 15 for the game.
Colgate’s Nicky Petkevich entered the game against Maryland with eight goals through two games of the season, including four in an upset against then-No. 10 Syracuse earlier in their first game. But the Terps kept Petkevich in check until a minute into the fourth quarter when he was able to get on the board for his only goal of the day.
The Terps credited assistant coach Jesse Bernhardt, and brother of Jared Bernhardt, for the defensive preparation they received following a three-day turnaround from their game on Saturday against Penn.
“Coach Bernhardt, he put in a really good plan this week. We had a really good job on the scout team,” defender Curtis Corley said. “We may not of gone full-go in the practices that we had. But when we were out there, we were dialed in.”
During the fourth quarter, the Raiders went on an three-goals-unanswered span, a fourth-quarter habit that the Terps have continued since giving up five goals to Richmond Feb. 9 and at Penn Feb. 16. As the Terps head to Annapolis to face and undefeated Navy team, and play their third game in eight days, Tillman’s team is still looking to improve.
“There’s just some things that we need to cleanup. You want to– especially if this was not a midweek game we would probably look at it a little differently,” Tillmann said. “But what we wanted to make sure was that it wasn’t going to become a track meet. We wanted to get the win, but we also didn’t want to get exhausted.”
