No. 5 Maryland has a 4-3 edge on No. 20 Navy at halftime at Byrd Stadium in College Park, but it's the Midshipmen who should be in front.
Navy took a 3-1 lead just 4:05 into the second quarter after junior attackman Andy Warner found senior midfielder Joe Lennon alone at the left point for a goal. But the team has squandered offensive possessions since then, taking sharp-angled or ill-advised shots at the cage.
The Midshipmen had a golden opportunity to stop the bleeding when redshirt junior long-stick midfielder Brian Farrell was flagged for slashing. But Warner took a shot from a poor angle left of the cage that Terps senior goalkeeper Brian Phipps gobbled up, and Maryland killed off the remainder of Farrell's one-minute penalty. Phiipps made five of his seven saves in the second quarter.
Meanwhile, junior attackman Grant Catalino has put the Terps on his back, scoring all three of the team's goals in the second quarter to reassert the team's dominance thus far. Catalino, who had been shut out in Maryland's 11-10 loss to No. 1 Virginia last Saturday, scored his second and third goals in a span of 15 seconds.
Other notes:
*Face-offs continue to plague the Midshipmen, who entered the contest winning 43.3 percent of their draws. They've won just 2 of 9 face-offs in the first half and don't seem to have an answer for Maryland's duo of senior Bryn Holmes and sophomore Jake Bernhardt.
*Lennon leads Navy with two goals, and senior midfielder Patrick Moran has chipped in one goal and one assist. Catalino is the Terps' only player with more than one point.
*Maryland is winning the battle of shots (19-13) and groundballs (20-11) and will begin the third quarter on an extra-man advantage after freshman short-stick defensive midfielder Jordan Seivold was assessed a 30-second penalty for holding with 11 seconds left in the second quarter.