U-Md. Women Turn to Past To Build Lacrosse Contender

Every so often, the coaches of the Maryland women's lacrosse team tell their players about their own college experiences, and how they believe the current squad can have similar success. That means a lot to these Terrapins, because head coach Cathy Reese and assistant coach Quinn Carney both played on four national championship teams as players at Maryland.

"To have Quinn and Cathy coaching us and telling us how it felt to win, and that we have the caliber and skill to compete, and that we can be national champions, is awesome," freshman attack Karri Ellen Johnson said. "It's really cool because we're ready to start that tradition again."

Historically, Maryland has been the dominant program in women's lacrosse. The Terrapins have played in more NCAA tournaments (25), advanced to more finals (16) and won more championships (9) than any other program. From 1995 (Reese's freshman year) to 2001 (Carney's senior year), Maryland won seven straight national titles.

The program has produced dozens of all-Americans and a slew of coaches. Five of the 16 teams in this year's NCAA tournament, which begins tomorrow, are coached by former Maryland players: top-seeded and four-time defending champion Northwestern (Kelly Amonte Hiller), second-seeded Maryland (Reese), fifth-seeded Duke (Kerstin Kimel), Massachusetts (Alexis Venechanos) and Towson (Missy Doherty). All five coaches won at least one national title as a Maryland player.

But the Terrapins haven't won a national championship since 2001 and haven't reached the national semifinals since 2003. In College Park, that counts as a slump. When Reese was hired before the 2007 season, senior associate athletic director Randy Eaton told the Baltimore Sun: "We fully expect to be a consistent final four-level program. Just getting into the field of 16 does not meet Maryland's expectations."

This year's team looks poised to return to the final four, which will be held in Towson, Md. Maryland, which hosts Colgate in an NCAA first-round game tomorrow afternoon, put together its best regular season in eight years. The Terrapins finished undefeated (19-0) for the first time since 2001 and won the ACC tournament for the first time since 2003.

"This ACC championship is the first championship that anyone on this team has won," said Reese, who was a two-time all-American at Maryland and an All-Met at Mount Hebron. "It's not that Maryland has had a drop; it's that there are so many competitive teams now. . . . This year, we have a team that is really enjoying competing with each other and is having fun doing it. It seems to be the right fit for where we are right now."

The Terrapins are young -- no seniors are in the starting lineup, and their top scorer (Johnson) and goalkeeper (Brittany Dipper) are freshmen -- but talented. Junior midfielder Caitlyn McFadden is one of five finalists for the Tewaaraton Trophy, lacrosse's equivalent to the Heisman Trophy. She also is one of three Maryland players who will be participating in next month's World Cup in the Czech Republic; McFadden is on the U.S. team, while sophomore attack Sarah Mollison will play for Australia and sophomore midfielder Laura Merrifield will suit up for England.

Maryland has a balanced, potent attack -- it ranks third in the country in scoring offense (16 goals per game) and has five players with 30 goals or more. Johnson, who was an All-Met at Broadneck, has 65 goals and was the only freshman to be nominated for the Tewaaraton Trophy.

The Maryland teams that Reese and Carney played for were known for their superior stick skills and explosive offenses; then-Coach Cindy Timchal, who is now at Navy, and assistant Gary Gait, now at Syracuse, gave the Terrapins the freedom to create. That suited Reese as a player, and she tries to foster that with her current team.

"One of the unique characteristics of Cathy was she could step on the field and command the game and the tempo of the game," said former Maryland star Jen Adams, who played with and coached alongside Reese and is now the head coach at Loyola. "We had a lot of freedom to go out and play, and she was always trying something new and exciting. You definitely see that with Maryland. They have the confidence to go out and create, and the freedom to create."

The other thing that Reese has tried to instill is a sense of togetherness among the players. The reason why so many Maryland players go on to become coaches, she said, is because they so loved the experience they had in College Park, and they want to share it.

"I think it always comes back to enjoying what you do," said Carney, who was an assistant at California, Stanford and UMBC before returning to College Park this season. "We really enjoyed each other and we really loved lacrosse -- that was more or less the magic of back then. This team now has that."

Those are the kind of things that the current Terrapins like to hear, because they know what Reese and Carney have accomplished.

"Their knowledge from their experience of winning all those national championships, I think it just helps us and brings an extra dimension to our game," McFadden said. "When they tell us that they believe in us and they see what we can do, it allows us to really believe them and believe that we can do it, too."