A retooled offense could help the Terps clear the final hurdle in 2025.
Maryland head coach John Tillman doesn’t particularly want to talk about 2024.
Last year, Maryland men’s lacrosse finished 11-6, the second-worst single-season win percentage (.647) of Tillman’s career. It was a season of almosts for the Terps, with excellent performances giving way to failure at the final hurdle.
Maryland was blown out by Penn State, 19-9, in the Big Ten Tournament semifinals. It then pulled off consecutive upsets against Duke and Virginia to reach the NCAA National Tournament championship game, before falling flat in a 15-5 loss to Notre Dame.
“If we’re gonna say anything about last year, we didn’t finish the job. We fell short of a number of our goals,” Tillman said.
Entering this season, the Terps are ranked No. 5 by Inside Lacrosse in their Division I preseason poll. Maryland is the highest-ranked Big Ten team, suggesting Tillman’s squad is in excellent position to follow through and achieve their goals this time around.
Photo by Allison Mize/Maryland Terrapins
Key losses
Attackers nationwide breathed a sigh of relief when Ajax Zappitello walked across the stage and officially graduated from Maryland. The 2024 Tewaaraton nominee, Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year and lone unanimous First-Team All-American for Inside Lacrosse and United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association was arguably the best defender in the country. The Terps retain the rest of their defensive unit, but their planning must shift without having a generational one-on-one lockdown option to call upon.
A less heralded but equally devastating loss for the Terps came with the graduation of Luke Wierman. Wierman finished with 881 career faceoff wins, the most in Maryland history and 10th-most in NCAA history. The four remaining faceoff players on Maryland’s roster have a combined 23 wins on the X.
The Terps’ 61.6% faceoff success rate ranked second nationwide last year, a notable advantage that will be near-impossible to replicate, especially given rule changes to the position. Starting this year, players who commit a violation on a faceoff are ineligible to take the next one. The rule will test the depth of all teams at the position, but Tillman remains bullish on his faceoff players.
“To expect them to pick up where Luke left off would be unfair and unrealistic, but we have high hopes for them,” he asserted.
The most comprehensive losses for the program occurred in the attack. Six Terps recorded 30 or more points last season, and four — Eric Malever (37), Daniel Maltz (34), Jack Koras (34) and Ryan Siracusa (31) — are no longer with the program.
Photo by Mackenzie Miles/Maryland Terrapins
Top returners
Goalkeeper Logan McNaney, who takes over the coveted No. 1 jersey this season, could play a crucial role for the Terps this season. The graduate student was named the NCAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player in 2022, as the Terps steamrolled to an undefeated national title victory, before tearing his right ACL just two games into the 2023 season.
According to Tillman, McNaney then played through a hand injury and further discomfort in the same knee last year before addressing those problems with multiple offseason surgeries. Now that he is fully healthy, McNaney will hope to return to the peak of his powers.
Further up the field, Braden Erksa enters his junior year with lofty expectations. After leading the Terps in points each of the last two seasons, Erksa will look to hit another gear in 2025.
One unanswered question for Tillman and the Terps’ coaching staff is where Erksa and returning senior Eric Spanos will line up during the season. Both players spent time in attack and midfield last season to devastating effect; Spanos’ 39 points were second on the team to Erksa’s 41. With the offense facing a near-complete overhaul, Tillman can get creative to unlock the best of both players.
In defense, Will Schaller will likely rise to take Zappitello’s place, having started the Terps’ last three playoff games. He will be featured alongside Colin Burlace and Jackson Canfield.
Newcomers
All six transfers to Maryland play midfield or attack, as Tillman hopes to bring consistency to an offense that showed flashes of quality but finished 46th in goals per game last year. The trio of Jack Dowd, Bryce Ford and Matthew Keegan will likely lead the charge.
Dowd is a fascinating midfield prospect. Playing for Salisbury University in Division III, Dowd racked up 45 goals and 34 assists last year. It remains to be seen whether he can effectively translate his game to the Division I level, but he could be a game-changer from deep.
Ford, a graduate transfer from Fairfield, finished 2024 with 39 goals and 13 assists. He will be joined in the attack by Keegan, who had 34 assists and 13 goals in just 13 games with Binghamton University last year.
Keegan’s 2.62 goals per game ranked 29th in Division I, just one place ahead of Ford’s 2.60 goals per game. The pair could be a ready-made solution to the departures of Malever and Maltz. Both players also served as captains for their team in 2024, bringing further leadership experience to the program.
“[The transfers] came in and right away they fit in perfectly,” said fifth-year attacker Daniel Kelly. “Right away, I knew they were a special group of guys. We’re super thankful to have them here wearing our jersey.”
While freshmen typically do not feature in Maryland’s lineup, five-star defender Peter Laake figures to be in contention at some point this season. Laake was the 2024 National Senior All-Star Game MVP and the third-ranked defenseman in his class.
Tillman also spoke highly of three-star faceoff recruit Jonah Carrier, who could figure into the Terps’ short-term plans at the position, and five-star attacker Spencer Ford, who was the highest-rated recruit of Maryland’s 12 freshmen.
Photo by Brieanna Andrews/Maryland Terrapins
Looking ahead
The Terps’ schedule consistently gives Maryland a chance to test itself against top-notch opponents, and this year brings more of the same. Nine of the 12 teams Maryland will face in 2025 are ranked in the preseason top 20; all of them entered the rankings at some point in 2024.
The back half of February could prove to be a particularly significant benchmark for the rest of Maryland’s season. Across three weeks, the Terps play three of the four teams currently ranked above them.
No. 2 Syracuse visits SECU Stadium on Feb. 15, seeking revenge after the Terps won an overtime thriller in upstate New York last year. Maryland then embarks on a two-game road trip, visiting No. 4 Princeton on Feb. 22 before traveling to Atlanta for a title game rematch against No. 1 Notre Dame on March 1.
Tillman and his squad are well aware of the massive matchups that await, but they remain squarely focused on what lies ahead: for now, that is Saturday’s home opener against Richmond. The Spiders, who took the Terps to double overtime last season, will pose a stiff challenge. Their focus on the present won’t stop the Terps from aiming high, though.
“Our goal is never to reach the national championship, it’s to win the national championship, that’s the standard here,” Kelly said. “People long before us built the standard, and it’s our job to live the standard out everyday. So, when you don’t bring the national championship home, for us … it’s a little bit of a failure. We want to bring that trophy back.”