The ingredients were all there.
After an emotional 10-8 win against then-No. 2 North Carolina on Saturday in Santa Ana, Calif., Maryland had to fly from California to Pittsburgh with little prep time to study a Robert Morris opponent eager to take a crack at the third-ranked team in the country on Tuesday.
Coach John Tillman has seen plenty of upsets occur in midweek games, but he turned to the team's veterans to help hone their teammates' focus.
"We really put it on our older players to have the team ready and be excited and be focused, and I thought that the older players did a really good job of getting everybody engaged and focused and ready to play like they always do," he said Wednesday.
"We reminded the kids about the upsets in midweek games and the letdown and things like that. And then when we went out for warmups, [senior defenseman] Casey Ikeda, [senior faceoff specialist] Charlie Raffa, [senior attackman] Jay Carlson and [junior defenseman] Matt Dunn, those guys are energetic, they're really setting a good tone, and I think it goes a long way."
The Terps (7-1) opened the game with 10 consecutive goals en route to a 13-4 thrashing. Aside from the ease of the victory, Tillman said it was especially important for the team to preserve the starters' health by pulling them after the first half and giving playing time to every available player on the roster.
"There are so many guys that have made sacrifices, and we really, really wanted to get them in the game," he said. "We got them in pretty early, a lot of them. The exceptions would be the goalies. I've never played four goalies in a game, and we were able to get four goalies in. …
"What really impressed me was the older players and a lot of the starters were as excited for them at the end of the game and cheered them on and supported them as much as some of the guys that were in have been doing for a lot of the starters. To me, that speaks to the type of guys we have and how much they care about each other and how much they appreciate what they do. Hopefully, this team realizes how important that is going to be for this team's success."