There's really no place like home for Maryland's women's lacrosse team, especially this year.
No one on this Terps team has ever lost a game at the Field Hockey & Lacrosse Complex in College Park. So after a long season of playing their top opponents on the road, the two-time defending national champion Terps are happy to settle in for a while.
As the No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament, the Terps will spend the next two weeks at home. They open their bid for a 14th national championship Sunday at noon against the winner of Friday night's Johns Hopkins-Virginia game. A win there would have them back home the following weekend.
Maryland's seniors are 42-0 at home and the program is 103-2 since Cathy Reese took over in 2007. The Terps have won 50 straight at home and haven't lost there since March 2012.
It's been a while since the Terps (19-0) have played at home. Since beating Virginia on April 20, they've played at Michigan and Penn State and then won the Big Ten Conference championship at Northwestern.
"We've been on the road a lot, so our team in general is excited to be back competing in front of Maryland fans on our home field," said Reese.
In one month early in the season, the Terps went on the road to play the other three teams seeded in the top four for the NCAA tournament — No. 2 Florida, No. 3 North Carolina and No. 4 Syracuse.
"We've had a lot of really tough road games," Reese said, "and for these guys to finish their season 19-0 having played such good teams on the road, I think that's been a good experience. One of our goals this season has been consistency with trying to get it all together with all the new players we have on our team and we've gotten better every game and now we're at the point where we need to put it all together to advance in the NCAA tournament."