PHILADELPHIA — It has been more than 40 years since Maryland won the national championship in men's Division I lacrosse, and the clock is still ticking.
The streak will continue until the Terps find some outstanding offensive players, not just guys that fit into the system. They need some more studs. They need some Alpha males.
Denver has a couple, which is why the Pioneers easily beat Maryland, 10-5, in the NCAA Division I championship game at Lincoln Financial Field Monday. The Pioneers have senior attackman Wesley Berg, who finished with five goals, including three in the first quarter.
They have other attackmen like Zach Miller and Connor Cannizzaro, and the Terps don't have anyone in that class. They have sophomore attackman Matt Rambo, but he hasn't been consistent enough.
"We didn't have a team of superstars," Maryland coach John Tillman said. "We had a lot of kids that bought in and sold out."
The Terps don't need a team of superstars because they play good enough defense to carry them to the big game. They just need one or two big guns on offense. All the other teams in the final four had them.
Johns Hopkins had Wells and Shack Stanwick, as well as attackman Ryan Brown. Notre Dame had midfielder Sergio Perkovic, who was magnificent in the second half of the Fighting Irish's loss to Denver Saturday in the semifinals.
Maryland hasn't had those types of players since Ryan Young, Grant Catalino and Owen Blye in 2011. The Terps haven't had a quarterback or player who can carry the ball and dominate behind goal since Joe Walters in 2006.
Defense does win championships, but the Terps aren't getting much offense in the big game. The last time Maryland played in the championship game was 2012, and the Terps lost to Loyola Maryland, 9-3.
Unfortunately, it might get worse before it gets better. Denver became the first team from the western area of the country to win the NCAA championship, and the Pioneers as well — as other teams like Albany and even Stony Brook — have opened up doors by recruiting top Canadian talent.
Maryland's cupboard might be bare for another year or two.
"We kind of knew our team better than anybody," Tillman said. "And certainly when you're going through the year, you can look at what you have and you build your team and your playing style based on what you have. Certainly we took some hits on our style of play, but we kind of looked at our group and we didn't necessarily have a group that we could get the ball and immediately have some dynamic, really fast guy that could put pressure on the other team."
That was perfectly clear midway through the fourth period. That's the time of a game when great players take over in big games. Trailing, 8-4, with 7:59 left in the game, the Terps pulled their goalie to double the ball and forced a turnover near midfield.
Almost 90 seconds later, Maryland senior midfielder Joe LoCascio was stripped of the ball and turned it over to Denver just inside the restraining line.
Oops.
In one of their final chances to turn the momentum, the Terps gave the ball to a player who had failed to score a goal despite taking 17 shots in the past two games. Nearly two minutes later, Maryland senior attackman Jay Carlson was stuffed one-on-one by goalie Ryan LaPlante on a shot released just in front of the crease.
Again, Carlson is a decent player, but he is no Berg.
At times, the three-or-four-goal leads Denver held throughout most of the game seemed like 10. Maryland had no player who could force the tempo. The Terps didn't have a midfielder who could sweep and break down a defense.
They continued to pass the ball around as if they were ahead by four. They were as slow as, well, turtles, and had scoring droughts that lasted nearly 13 and 20 minutes.
"So, we weren't the fastest team," Tillman said. "That's just kind of who we were. Looking at the way we were going to be successful, we were going to have to really hang our hat on defense, good goalie play, facing off. And today we pushed the ball a couple times in transition, trying to get out. And we'd love to play just roll the ball out and get up and down, up and down, [but] we're not built that way. We don't have those parts.
"So are you going to just play that way for the sake of doing it, or do you look and go, 'What can we do to give these kids the best chance to be successful?' And it was a little bit more opportunistic, efficient, gritty, ground balls and those types of things. And we felt like if we played good defense, people wouldn't pull away from us, and then we just had the scheme, maybe use picks and shoot smart."
The Terps didn't shoot smart. They consistently shot high on LaPlante, who finished with 13 saves. Even when the Terps drew up great plays to get good looks, they couldn't finish.
"At the end of the quarters, we were getting some of the shots from the spots that we wanted," junior midfielder Bryan Cole said. "We kind of had a game plan in terms of shooting. We got away from it at times."
Denver played well, and that was expected. There is a reason Pioneers head coach Bill Tierney has won seven national championships, and it's because he has a reputation for building great defenses.
But there is a consistent problem Maryland has had dating back to the days of former head coach Dick Edell in the 1980s. The Terps usually play great defense, but struggle with offense in the biggest game.
Hopefully, this doesn't last for another 40 years.
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