March 22, 2008
by Jesse Baumgartner, Special to Lacrosse Magazine Online
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - Just a week removed from a gut-wrenching triple-overtime loss to UMBC, the youthful No. 9-ranked Maryland men's lacrosse team desperately needed a road win against No. 4 North Carolina to avoid a third loss with plenty of tough games left on the schedule.
So the Terps made it simple. They got turnovers, and played big - very big - while controlling the Tar Heels (6-2, 0-2 ACC) at Fetzer Field with a comfortable 13-8 victory.
The 12 Tar Heel turnovers weren't anything out of the ordinary, given that Maryland causes an average of 14 a game. And UNC helped out by throwing away numerous passes, including a four-foot hand-off in the fourth quarter after scoring three straight goals to pull within four.
"There's not a whole lot of positives out of today, quite frankly," UNC coach John Haus said.
But other turnovers came from pressure and big hits from the Terps (6-2, 1-1), who transferred that physicality to the offensive end.
The bull-rush mentality up front was evident from the start of the game, when Maryland midfielder Adam Sear simply pushed his way through a UNC defender for a point blank-range score to tie the game at two apiece. That style was also successful later on for the Terps, in large part because they have the personnel to make it work.
When senior mid Will Dalton took the ball up top, pinballed to the right off the UNC defense and found the net to put Maryland ahead for good, 4-3, it wasn't hard to see why the strategy panned out.
The 6-foot, 4-inch Dalton tips the scales at 270 pounds, a figure that doesn't show up on most team rosters. Just the strength and weight he poses to defenses can allow Maryland to sneak a few goals in, and the senior has seven already this season.
"There's not a lot of shorties who can match up with Will," Terps coach Dave Cottle said in a Dalton-sized understatement.
And as if one weren't enough, the Terps have 6-foot, 5-inch, 240-pound freshman Grant Catalino up front with their attack this year, the owner of an impressive 13 goals and five assists so far.
"Grant's kind of 'Baby Huey,' we never know what we're going to get out of him," Cottle said. "But he's a great kid, and he's getting better every week."
After UNC closed to 6-4 near the end of the first half, the frosh decided to copy his elder heavyweight. Holding the ball on the left side, Catalino used his strength to push off a UNC defender while moving in to create an angle for his goal and give the Terps a 7-4 halftime lead. He later added an assist to put Maryland up 12-5 in the fourth quarter.
"It's our game style," Dalton said. "Me and Catalino with our size, we just play a different, big-game style - a lot of times it works out for us."
While UNC had decent success stopping those two later in the game, they had already given the Terps what Cottle termed "size goals" just by exploiting physical mismatches during the first half.
"I think at first, when the slide comes, they don't really know how to approach it right away," Dalton said. "And...sometimes you get lucky and get through."
Maybe not lucky. Just big.
