Syracuse men’s lacrosse: NCAA Tournament Final Four vs. Maryland preview and game thread

It’s Memorial Day weekend and the Orange are back in the Final Four!

Welcome back to Championship Weekend, Orange Nation!

The 6-seed Syracuse Orange are set to play their first game in the Final Four since 2013 when they take on the 2-seed Maryland Terrapins at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough in the second semifinal of the day at approximately 2:30 PM on ESPN2.

Maryland has owned ‘Cuse in the John Tillman era, as the Terps current, seven-game winning streak against the Orange originated during Tillman’s first season in 2011. SU fans have been trying to forget that game ever since, as it was the infamous, 6-5 overtime game in the NCAA Quarterfinals that played a big role in calls for the shot clock in college. Funny enough, that game also took place in Foxborough.

Tillman is 7-0 against ‘Cuse as the head coach of Maryland.

Gary Gait and the Orange will look to continue their season of redemption as they try to end their losing streak and get revenge on the Terps for their 11-7 loss back in February.

• All-time series: 22nd meeting; Maryland leads, 15-6
• NCAA Tournament series: 9th meeting; Tied, 4-4
• Last meeting: Maryland W, 11-7, on February 15, 2025
• Syracuse this season: 13-5 overall, 2-2 ACC
• Maryland this season: 13-3 overall, 3-2 Big Ten

Maryland, as always, is a very difficult matchup because they’re a disciplined team that doesn’t make very many mistakes and punishes their opponents when they do. Maryland doesn’t beat themselves, so you’re going to have to play your best, cleanest game in order to do so.

It all stems from head coach John Tillman, who is pretty inarguably the best coach in the country. In his 15 years in College Park, he’s made it to Championship Weekend a staggering 11 times, and it’s actually 11 times in 14 tournaments because of the 2020 season.

What Maryland wants is to get an early lead, then shorten the game with elongated, deliberate possessions and suffocating defense that forces you into long possessions yourself.

They want to play at a slow pace, but they will look to run if they can force a mistake and gain an advantage. The offense lacks star power, but the efficiency they play with means the whole is greater than the sum their parts.

Eric Spanos (30G, 16A), Braden Erksa (30G, 15A) and Daniel Kelly (32G, 9A) lead the charge at attack, while Matthew Keegan (21G, 12A), Zach Whittier (12G, 19A) and Bryce Ford (20G, 10A) constitute the first-line midfield.

The defense is littered with All-Americans. Their six-on-six is so good that the importance of playing as much half-field defense as possible is paramount to anything else for the Terps. In other words, avoiding turning the ball over or taking bad shots, anything that could lead to a run-out for their opponents, is the most important thing.

They’re happy to play you straight up and dare you to beat them, because they’ve got a pair of All-Americans on their rope unit in LSM Jack McDonald and SSDM Eric Kolar, a first-team All-American on close in Will Schaller, and one of the best and perhaps the most clutch goalie in college in veteran Logan McNaney.

This matchup is clearly a clash of styles, and whichever team is able to better control the tempo the game is played at will have an upper hand in determining the outcome.

One of the most important aspects of that for SU is getting off to a good start to make sure Maryland doesn’t jump out to an early lead with the chance to play from ahead. If they get that early lead, they can slow the game down and make a comeback very difficult, especially with their defense and McNaney in goal.

In order for ‘Cuse to avoid that, it all starts with Johnny Mullen on restarts. Maryland is a team that’s barely above 50 percent on the season and will use multiple guys against Mullen to see if anyone can gain an advantage. Last weekend, against a similarly mediocre Princeton face-off unit, he really struggled and the Tigers dominated on draws.

He needs to get back to the form he was in before last week, because a strong effort on face-offs can give SU a big possession advantage and, more importantly, can give them a chance to create early offense before Maryland can settle in to their defense.