The forward has scored six times in his last seven appearances.
On Sept. 9, Maryland men’s soccer right back Brian St. Martin beat a San Diego State defender down the right side of the field and lofted a ball to the back post. On the receiving end was junior forward Colin Griffith, who had been waiting 670 days for this moment. He smashed a side footed volley out of the air and into the right corner of the goal.
Griffith wheeled away pumping his fist and screaming, a weight having been lifted off his shoulders.
“It was a relief to get the first goal on the board,” Griffith said. “I was able to play a bit more free after that knowing I got the first one down.”
Since, Griffith has led the team with five goals, scoring in all but one of his last six appearances. Griffith’s production is exactly what the Terps needed, who improved their record from 2-1-2 to 8-1-4 following his break-through goal.
Griffith, a Pennsylvania native with citizenship in Barbados, was a highly-touted recruit out of high school, winning MVP of the MLS Next U19 division.
When he arrived at Maryland as a freshman in 2022, head coach Sasho Cirovski instantly demonstrated his faith in him by inserting him into the rotation of a stacked offensive team.
By the end of his freshman year, Griffith flashed plenty of promise. In 18 appearances, mostly as a substitute, he managed three goals and an assist.
Heading to his sophomore season, he looked poised to fill the gap of departing stars Joshua Bolma and Malcolm Johnston and become a primary offensive option.
Instead, 2023 saw things take a turn for the worse, both for Griffith and Cirovski’s program as a whole.
Griffith made just one start — the season’s opening game — and failed to score a goal in nine appearances, while missing seven games to injury, throughout the year.
Meanwhile, Maryland endured its worst season in 30 years, winning just four games.
“Last year was what none of us wanted, so all the guys that decided to come back, we all had the same goal: to turn it around and play Maryland soccer again,” Griffith said.
Heading into 2024, Cirovski’s message to his team was simple. It was their “revenge season,” an opportunity to restore respect to Maryland as one of the best programs in college soccer.
Cirovksi also had a personal challenge for Griffith.
“We challenged Colin to put in the work this summer to be fit so that he can utilize his skillset,” Cirovski said. “And he did the work.”
Early in Maryland’s season, though, the results weren’t readily apparent for the team or Griffith.
The Terps only won two of their first five games, losing to the only ranked opponent they faced in then-No. 16 Georgetown and drawing games against Virginia and UMBC. Griffith, who was strike partners with sophomore Luke van Heukelum in a traditional 4-4-2 formation, was mostly invisible, failing to record a single goal or assist.
His struggles were a microcosm of what was going wrong for the team: it simply couldn’t find enough goals, especially from open play. Aside from its 5-2 domination of Detroit Mercy, who currently sit at 183 out of 212 in the NCAA’s Division I RPI rankings, Maryland scored just one goal from open play to begin the year.
Cirovski’s faith in his forward was unshaken though.
“He’s done it for so long, he’s seen everything,” Griffith said. “… he just really supported me throughout the injuries, through maybe not playing so well and just always believed in me and pushed me to be better.”
When van Heukelum left the San Diego State game in an ambulance with an upper-body injury, Cirovski was forced to make a change to his formation, switching to a 4-3-3 with Griffith rotating between the center forward and left wing position.
Griffith’s volley goal in that game was his first in almost two calendar years, but it quickly became clear he wasn’t going to start a new drought.
In their next game, the Terps opened conference play with a resounding 3-0 victory over then-No. 8 Wisconsin. Their third goal came when Griffith carried the ball from midfield all the way to the edge of Wisconsin’s box and uncorked a beautiful curling effort into the top-right corner.
“Goalscorers build a lot of confidence when they score,” Cirovski said of his forward postgame. “He looks like a confident player at the moment.”
That confidence rolled through every single one of Maryland’s conference games, as Griffith scored four more times — multiple of them looking similar to the one against Wisconsin; he has been extremely dangerous cutting inside on his right foot.
Indiana was the only Big Ten opponent he failed to score against, but he drew the penalty that won Maryland the match.
His scoring touch has been precisely what the team needed, propelling them to the No. 6-ranked team in the country and sole position of first place in the Big Ten.
When Griffith looks back on what allowed him to rediscover his form, one important factor was having a good balance in his mindset.
“You got to want the goals, but you can’t want it bad enough to where that’s all you’re thinking about, because then it’s going to affect the rest of your game,” he said.
The Terps are in pole position heading into their home stretch of conference play, but some big-time matchups await them in No. 19 UCLA and No. 5 Ohio State.
Cirovski has said a key will be other attackers following in Griffith’s footsteps.
“He’s been a real bright spot, we just need to get a few other guys becoming more consistent threats,” Cirovski said.