Maryland beat AU 6-1 and Drexel 5-0 in the first two rounds.   In the hunt for their seventh NCAA title, Maryland is looking to repeat as National Champions and pick-up their fourth title in five years.  The Terps also beat UVA a couple weeks ago to pick-up their eighth ACC Championship title.

Katie O’Donnell, Emma Thomas, and Nicole Muracco continue to lead the team on its march through the schedule.  The Terps will have to stop Princeton’s Kathleen Sharkey, who leads the team with 21 goals on the season including 6 game winners, in what should prove to be a tough match-up.  A bigger test will come out of the winner of the UVA vs UNC game.  Despite the fact that UVA is the higher seed, UNC seems better on paper to me, scoring about one goal per game more than UVA and allowing about 1/2 goal per game less than UVA.  They’re also playing what amounts to a home game on the campus of Wake Forest.

I’m going to predict a UMD vs UNC final in Winston-Salem.  Let’s hope enough of our fans travel there to make it at least somewhat neutral.  That game takes place Sunday at noon, and Shell Games will be following the tournament throughout the weekend.  GO TERPS!

Maryland field hockey celebrates its ACC Championship.

Congratulations to the Maryland field hockey team for winning the ACC Championship this weekend. The Terps did it with impressive wins over #9 UVA and #2 Wake Forest, further justifying their #1 RPI ranking.   Once again the Terps were led Susie Rowe, who earned tournament MVP honors. Their first NCAA Tournament games will be this Saturday and Sunday in College Park.

There is no secret formula or magic trick.  Each person has to look at themselves and at each one of their teammates and make the commitment to find it, whether tangible or not.

The Terps accomplished their first goal for this season, but at this point this team will not be satisfied with anything less than a National Championship. If Sarah Scholl’s blog post from November 8th is any indication, this team is as serious as a heart attack about winning it all this year. I’ve been feeling the mojo all year with this squad, and I can’t wait to see how this story ends.