A Dominant Fourth Quarter Propels Maryland to a 19-12 Win Over Rutgers
It was a picture-perfect day as a picture-perfect game was played by the Maryland Terrapins as they blew out the ranked 4 in the country Rutgers Scarlet Knights. For the first 45 minutes, Rutgers was able to keep things close but as the game went on and the 4th quarter started, Maryland turned on the burners.
Just 28 seconds into the game, Maryland was able score their first goal of the game. Daniel Maltz was able to find the back of the net off of a great feed from Logan Wisnauskas. Great ball movement is what brought the Terps their first goal and many of the goals that came later. Adam Charalambides then tied it up scoring Rutgers first goal of the game less than a minute later. Then the Jared Bernhardt show started. The Senior scored three straight goals in just over five minutes to give Maryland an early three goal lead. Rutgers then scored two of their own in one minute and two seconds to make it a one goal game. Kyle Long finished off the first quarter with the final goal to make it 5-3 Terps.
The start of the 2nd quarter though was all Rutgers. The Scarlet Knights scored three straight to take a 6-5 lead with 9:11 left in the half. Maryland then continued their scoreless streak until Logan Wisnauskas was able to tie it up with 6:05 left in the 2nd quarter. The Wisnauskas goal was the Terps first in more than 10 minutes of game time. The remainder of the second then consisted of back and forth fast-paced action, each team scoring three goals, to make the score at halftime 9-9. All six of those goals came from different players.
After a goal-heavy first half, the defenses took over in the 3rd quarter. Only three goals were scored in the entire quarter, two of which coming from Maryland and one coming from Rutgers. There were no goals within four minutes of each other. Maryland just wasn’t able to get enough shots on net to do anything productive in the 3rd. The score was 11-10, Maryland.
But then in the 4th quarter, everything changed for the Terps. Two goals in the 2:15 were a good start, yet that was nothing compared to what they were about to do. Kieran Mullins scored with 12:43 left in the game but from then on, it was all Maryland. The Terps then scored six straight goals, the last of which was Jared Bernhardt’s sixth of the game, a new career-high. Yet even after a career-high game, Bernhardt noted postgame how he still isn’t satisfied.
Rutgers goalie Colin Kirst was just simply not able to stop any Maryland shots. For the whole game, Kirst had a save percentage of .269, which for those of you who don’t know is absolutely horrendous. The Scarlet Knights were able to score one more goal to finish off the game which made the final score 19-12 Maryland.
Maryland’s next game is next Saturday at noon at Ohio State. Stay tuned for a game preview.
