Will Snider the hero in Maryland men’s lacrosse team’s 8-7 triple-overtime win at Johns Hopkins

Before Saturday, Will Snider's greatest claim to fame around the Maryland men's lacrosse program might've been being known as the younger brother to Drew, who had 62 points and was named a team captain in his senior year in 2012.

After Saturday, Snider might become the most popular player on the team not named Connor Kelly.

The junior midfielder scored the tying and winning goals – the latter coming 49 seconds into the third overtime – to lift the No. 3 Terps to a riveting 8-7 win over No. 7 Johns Hopkins at Homewood Field.

With the victory, Maryland (11-2, 4-1 Big Ten) captured the conference's regular-season championship. After sharing the 2015 title with the Blue Jays, the Terps have won the past three titles outright. As the top seed in the league tournament, the Terps will meet No. 9 Rutgers (9-4, 2-3) in a semifinal Thursday at Michigan.

Johns Hopkins fell to 9-4, 3-2, but earned the No. 2 seed as a result of owning the head-to-head tiebreaker over No. 19 Ohio State (8-6, 3-2). The Blue Jays and Buckeyes will clash in the other semifinal.

Maryland's regular-season crown was not sealed until Snider's heroics in what was the first triple-overtime game in series history. Snider credited his roommate, redshirt freshman attackman Logan Wisnauskas (Boys' Latin), for sending a cross-field pass from the right wing. Snider then ripped a 12-yard shot from the left wing inside the right post and past Johns Hopkins senior goalkeeper Brock Turnbaugh (Hereford) to thrill and disappoint a sellout crowd of 10,388.

Snider, who had scored three career goals before Saturday's game, acknowledged that the game-winner exceeded any of his previous goals.

"This is it," he said. "This is great. This is awesome. You dream about moments like this. Hopkins-Maryland is something you grow up watching. So it was really an awesome experience."

Snider had come off the bench in his first six games, but has now started the past five at attack — although he tends to switch between attack and midfield depending on where Kelly, the team's leading scorer and a Tewaaraton Award nominee, works. But with Kelly limited to only one assist and an 0-for-13 shooting day by junior long-stick midfielder Robert Kuhn, and sophomore attackman Jared Bernhardt going 0-for-11 and posting one assist against senior defenseman Patrick Foley, the offense relied on Wisnauskas (three goals, one assist), senior midfielder Tim Rotanz (two goals, one assist) and Snider.

"He's a pretty dynamic shooter, a nice dodger," Rotanz said of Snider. "For him to kind of break out his shell in a game like this with the last two goals of the game was huge. I think it's really going to help his confidence and roll over into the Big Ten tournament."

For his first two years, Snider was a mainstay on the scout team, performing the task of preparing the starters and key reserves for upcoming opponents. Snider, a Seattle resident, acknowledged the difficulty of transitioning from the West Coast to a lacrosse hotbed like Maryland, but coach John Tillman said Snider embraced his role.

"It's hard for a young guy to know that you're not going to play, but we ask you to dodge over and over again and maybe beat somebody else," Tillman said. "When they're playing against [starting defensemen] Bryce [Young] and Curtis [Corley] and some of the other good players, there's potential to develop if you hang in there and you look at it as an opportunity to get better. And Will and [senior attackman] Colin Giblin are two prime examples of guys that for maybe two or three years didn't play a lot, but they came in there and they were prepared because they played against good players."

In addition to Snider, the Terps got 13 saves from senior goalie Dan Morris, and Corley shut out sophomore attackman Cole Williams (Loyola Blakefield), holding him to nine shots and only one assist.

Senior midfielder Joel Tinney scored two goals and junior midfielder Alex Concannon scored twice for the Blue Jays. Senior attackman Shack Stanwick (Boys' Latin) returned from a one-game absence because of an unspecified injury and contributed one goal and one assist. But Johns Hopkins suffered its fourth consecutive loss to Maryland.

"No moral victories," Johns Hopkins coach Dave Pietramala said. "We came into this game hoping to win, expecting to win, and I think at moments, we played well enough to win. Unfortunately at the end, they made one more play than we did."

Maryland 2 1 2 2 0 0 1 — 8

Johns Hopkins 2 0 3 2 0 0 0 — 7

Goals: M—Wisnauskas 3, Rotanz 2, Snider 2, Shockey; J—Concannon 2, Tinney 2, DeSimone, Marr, Stanwick. Assists: M—Bernhardt, Fairman, Kelly, Rotanz, Wisnauskas; J—Marr, Shilling, Stanwick, Williams. Saves: M—Morris 13; J—Turnbaugh 8.

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Duke's Nakeie Montgomery (15) celebrates after scoring on Maryland's Dan Morris, seated left, during the first half in the semifinals of the NCAA Division 1 college lacrosse tournament in Foxborough, Mass., Saturday, May 26, 2018. (Michael Dwyer / AP)

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