Maryland Upsets #3 Seed Michigan, 5-1; Advances To Championship Game
Louisville, Ky
. – The University of Maryland was the only team in the NCAA Division I Women’s Field Hockey Final Four that was not a seed and their Cinderella run to the title game continued as they knocked off their second seed in a row, this time #3 seed Michigan Wolverines, 5-1, in the National Semi-Finals to book a date with the #1 Seed Connecticut Huskies in Sunday’s title match (2:00 PM EST) at Trayger Stadium.
Maryland (16-6) defeated the #2 seed Duke Blue Devils, 3-2, in the quarterfinals. Should the Terps defeated Connecticut (22-0) and win the title, it will be the first time in the history of the tournament that a team took out the top three seeds to capture the championship.
The Terps would score twice in the first half and that’s all they would really need to defeat their B1G Ten rival Michigan (21-3). But they did add another three goals in the second half for the offense explosion.
Scoring for Maryland was Freshman D Bodil Keus and Sophomore M Madison Maguire each had two goals and Jurnior F Linneal Gonzales had another.
Michigan’s lone goal came from Graduating Senior F Carly Bennett.
Scoring exactly at the four-minute mark of the first half, Sophomore D Kelee Lepage passed the ball to Maguire and she would tip it in for her 8th goal of the season and gave the Terps a 1-0 lead.
In the 25th minute (24:22 mark), Keus would score her 12th goal of the season (with assists from Senior M Lein Holsboer and Senior M Brooke Adler). The 2-0 lead would hold up until halftime.
Just 78 seconds into the second half, Maguire would score her second goal of the game and 9th overall and the lead stretched to 3-0 for the Terps.
Bennett scored for Michigan at the 46:44 mark (with an assist from Freshman M Kayla Reed) and cut the lead down to 3-1.
Only four minutes later, at the 50:29 mark, Maryland would get that goal back with Gonzales scored her 10th goal of the year and that made it 4-1 Terps.
The last goal came at the 63:46 mark when the trio of Keus, Holsboer and Adler would team up to help give Keus her second goal of the game and “lucky” 13th overall goal and Maryland had the commanding 5-1 lead.
Maryland out-shot Michigan 9-5 for the game, but Michigan did have a 3-2 advantage in penalty corners.
