PHILADELPHIA — The last time the Maryland men's lacrosse program captured the NCAA championship in 1975, coach John Tillman was 5 years old and no player on the current roster had been born.
The drought — now numbering 40 years — is an oft-discussed topic among the players, coaches, alumni and fans, and the No. 6 seed Terps (15-3) could end the conversation by defeating No. 4 seed Denver (16-2) in the NCAA tournament final at 1 p.m. at Lincoln Financial Field on Monday.
And even though 42 of the current 46 players will experience a title game in the NCAA postseason for the first time, some acknowledged that there is a sense of urgency to snapping the dry spell.
"It's definitely in our mind," sophomore attackman Matt Rambo said. "Our alumni talk about how great it would be to have the championship back. It's been too long, they always say. We've had a bunch of the '75 guys come back, and they say, 'It's too long and we wish you guys could bring it back.' They've been encouraging us a lot."
Added senior attackman Jay Carlson, a Cockeysville resident and St. Paul's graduate: "It's been a long time since 1975, the last championship. So we're just worried about [Monday] and getting better each day. We are trying to play unselfish lacrosse and moving it and playing great defense and trying to get as many goals as possible."
Maryland qualified for four title games between 1971 and 1975, losing to Cornell in 1971 and Johns Hopkins in 1974 but defeating the Blue Jays in 1973 and Navy in 1975.
Since then however, the Terps have gone 0-7 in NCAA tournament finals. Under Tillman, they advanced to Memorial Day in 2011 and 2012, but lost to Virginia and Loyola Maryland, respectively.
But rather than be discouraged by the program's winless streak in title games, senior defenseman Casey Ikeda said the current players view it as motivation.
"There's nothing we can really do about that," he said. "The numbers are the numbers. We can be 0-and-a-million, but Monday is a new game, and we're just trying to win that one."
Sophomore defenseman Mac Pons, whose uncle Mike Mosko played for Maryland in 1986 and 1987, said the team is driven to create some positive history.
"It makes you hungrier to get that monkey off your back," said Pons, a Bel Air resident and Boys' Latin graduate. "But we're just not really worried about that part. We have one more game. So we're focused on that."
Tillman said the irony of the flagship university of a state considered one of two hotbeds for lacrosse in the midst of a four decades-long drought in that sport is not lost on him. But he also pointed out that the fleeting nature of youth means that the players are primarily concerned with their own experiences.
"We don't need to put any additional pressure on them. So we don't," he said. "We just talk about [how] this is your time. Let's make the most of it. And I think that's a really healthy way of looking at it. When the guys who were part of your program are saying the same thing, I think it's great. I think it's really refreshing. We all want the same thing. But if you focus on the end result and not on the daily details and the process, you're never going to get there."
Like the Terps, the Pioneers are aiming to make some history of their own by capturing a NCAA crown in their first championship final. They have won 12 consecutive games and have not lost since March 14 against Ohio State.
"There's definitely that sense of urgency, and Denver is going to be so good for the next couple of years and probably for the next couple of decades," said senior attackman Wesley Berg, a Tewaaraton Award finalist who scored the game-winning goal in Saturday's 11-10 overtime win against top-seeded Notre Dame. "But you never know if you're going to have a strong team. There's injuries, there's bad luck, there's a bad bounce or something, and all of a sudden, it's one game and you're out. So we're really excited to be here, but there's definitely a sense of urgency for us to win it this year."
In addition to Berg, the Pioneers are led by former Maryland sophomore attackman Connor Cannizzaro (56 goals and 33 assists), senior goalkeeper Ryan LaPlante (8.53 goals-against average and .529 save percentage) and freshman faceoff specialist Trevor Baptiste (8G, 5A, 136 ground balls, 68.6 faceoff percentage on 300-of-437).
The current Terps agree that while they respect the past, they are playing for the present.
"I've been saying this a lot, but it's a new year, it's a new team," Rambo said. "So we try to just get it done with our team. It's not really pressure, that we have to get it because it's been so long. It's more that it's our goal, and it's every team's goal."
Pons said the memory of Maryland's last loss in the tournament final still seems fresh to him.
"I remember [former long-stick midfielder] Jesse Bernhardt going down and scoring the first goal and how that kind of got the momentum going," Pons said. "And then Loyola just took over. It was tough to watch, but hopefully, we can change it on Monday."