After winning their first nine games by an average margin of seven goals, Maryland has scored four straight victories by one goal each.
The Terps (13-3), the No. 6 seed in the NCAA Division I tournament, captured their fourth consecutive win by one goal after edging Yale, 8-7, in Saturday's first-round action at Byrd Stadium in College Park.
The narrow margin of victory in the last four contests might not be good for John Tillman's hair or stomach, but the Maryland coach said he is comfortable with the close decisions.
"Certainly, you always like to have – as a coach for your stress level and longevity – those games have a little bigger cushion, but you're thankful you get the wins," he said Tuesday morning during his weekly conference call. "We played some pretty good teams, and I think some of those one-goal games have really helped us in the other, subsequent one-goal games. Sometimes you have to be in those games and manage the stressful situations. You're under pressure and you've got to make decisions based on what's going on in the game. That could mean going to the goal, not going to the goal, holding the ball, trying to get a stop. A lot of times when you're in those one-goal games and you can find a way to win, there's sometimes a [comfort level] that, 'Alright, guys, we've been here before. Let's not let the environment and the moment get the best of us, and let's not be emotional. Let's just keep playing with emotion, keep managing and making the right decisions. But this is not the first time we've been here.' I do think coaches do take stock in that, and if you haven't been in some of those, it would worry you."
The offense averaged 11.2 goals in the team's first nine wins, but that production has dipped to 9.5 in the last four. Tillman acknowledged that the Terps must be more effective in Sunday's quarterfinal against No. 3 seed North Carolina (13-3) at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis at 2:30 p.m.
"Certainly, you'd like a little bigger cushion, but I put it on some of the teams we've been playing," he said. "Yale's a very good team. That Ohio State team is in the quarterfinals, and they're a really good team. You saw what Rutgers did to Ohio State down the stretch, and we have a lot of respect for Loyola [Maryland]. Those games were all pretty close, and candidly, I didn't think we would probably be in the position we were when we were in that 11-game winning streak. So I think things are maybe evening out a little bit. I think offensively, that's something we've really looked at the last two days."