Maryland Advances to ACC Women's Championship with Victory over Wake Forest

After a dominant performance in the Quarterfinals, there is always a small concern that a team will have a bit of a letdown in the next game. Fortunately, Maryland held strong. Alyssa Thomas led the team again with a double-double -- 18 points and 12 rebounds. Maryland’s Laurin Mincy, Tianna Hawkins, and Lynetta Kizer each also scored in double figures as No. 5 Maryland (27-4) defeated Wake Forest (19-13) in the ACC Basketball Tournament Semi-finals by a score of 73-58.

Despite the game being highly-contested in the first half, Wake Forest only led in the game for around a minute. This trend continued in the second half. Wake Forest would get close to taking the lead, but not close enough. In the second half, the Terrapins pushed the lead to double digits. The lead stayed around there for most of the game. Wake Forest would cut the lead down to single digits only to have the lead return back to double-digits again with their largest lead at one point being sixteen. The game picked up with five minutes remaining when Wake Forest’s Lakevia Boykin scored five points in a span of fifteen seconds after a three pointer and a steal from Alyssa Thomas and layup that cut the lead down to 61-54. The Terps responded strongly, not allowing the lead to get any lower for the rest of the game. Alyssa Thomas once again led the team strongly as both a scorer in the first half and a facilitator in the second. She played an all around great game, leading the team in points (18), rebounds (12), and assists (4). The Terps shot over 50%. They outrebounded the Demon Deacons 39-32.

Once again turnovers plagued Maryland all game. Maryland had 21 turnovers compared to 9 for Wake Forest. Alyssa Thomas had 6 TOs by herself. This is slightly down from Maryland’s Quarterfinals performance versus Virginia where they had 24. Turnovers are really what kept Wake Forest in the game. Wake Forest shot relatively poorly (22-74 for 29.7%) compared to Maryland (28-53 for 52.8%). However, Maryland’s turnovers led to numerous fast-break points. Maryland must clean this up for the championship game if they want to bring home ACC Championship gold.

Maryland looks to complete a three game sweep of No. 18 Georgia Tech on Sunday. The Yellow Jackets won their semi-final game in dominant fashion over NC State 87-61. Tip-off is at 2:00PM on ESPN2. Maryland will look to break the tie with North Carolina for most ACC Tournament Championships as they go for their tenth championship. 

This Week in Maryland Sports - March 4-10, 2012

This is a schedule detailing all the games from all the sports that are taking place this week. If you can, go out and support our Terps! Even though they are non-revenue teams, they still deserve our support. 

March 4

11:00AM – Men’s Tennis at Notre Dame

12:00PM – Softball vs. Massachusetts (Alabama Invite)

1:00PM - Women’s ACC Basketball Championship

1:00 PM - Men’s Basketball vs. Virginia

1:00PM – Baseball vs. Manhattan

1:00PM – Women’s Lacrosse at Hofstra

1:00PM – Women’s Tennis vs. Virginia Tech

March 5

All Day – Men’s Golf; Cleveland Golf Palmetto Intercollegiate

March 6

All Day – Men’s Golf; Cleveland Golf Palmetto Intercollegiate

3:00PM – Men’s Tennis at Baylor

3:00PM – Baseball vs. Delaware

7:00 PM – Men’s Lacrosse at UMBC

March 7

2:00PM – Baseball at Navy

March 8

All Day – Men’s and Women’s Track and Field; NCAA Indoor Nationals

All Day – Men’s ACC Basketball Tournament First Round

March 9

All Day – Men’s ACC Basketball Tournament Quarterfinals

All Day – Men’s and Women’s Track and Field; NCAA Indoor Nationals

All Day – Women’s Golf; JMU/Eagle Landing Invitational

All Day – Men’s and Women’s Swimming; Diving Zone Championships

3:00PM – Women’s Softball vs. Princeton (Maryland Round Robin - Wounded Warrior Weekend)

5:30PM – Softball vs. Rhode Island (Maryland Round Robin - Wounded Warrior Weekend)

6:00PM – Baseball at Wake Forest

7:00PM – Acrobatics and Tumbling vs. Quinnipiac

March 10

All Day – Men’s ACC Basketball Tournament Semifinals

All Day – Men’s and Women’s Track and Field; NCAA Indoor Nationals

All Day – Women’s Golf; JMU/Eagle Landing Invitational

All Day – Men’s and Women’s Swimming; Diving Zone Championships

1:00 PM - Women’s Lacrosse vs. Syracuse

1:00PM – Men’s Lacrosse vs. Marist

3:00PM – Women’s Softball vs. Princeton (Maryland Round Robin - Wounded Warrior Weekend)

4:00PM – Baseball at Wake Forest

5:30PM – Softball vs. Kent State (Maryland Round Robin - Wounded Warrior Weekend)

Undefeated Terps Win Hard-fought Game Versus Blue Devils in Men's Lacrosse

It’s always enjoyable when Maryland beats Duke. Fifth-ranked Maryland jumped out to a 5-1 lead against eighth-ranked Duke after the end of the first quarter and never looked back. Maryland won a very physical match 10-7.

Maryland senior midfielder, Drew Snider, had a hat trick, and eight different Terrapins scored in the game. Niko Amano also had fourteen saves. Maryland had a strong first half, going into halftime with a score of 7-2. Duke attempted to lead a strong surge behind a Josh Dionne goal early in the third quarter and another goal by CJ Constabile. However, Maryland’s Jay Carlson and Billy Gribbin each put in a goal of his own as Maryland (3-0, 1-0 ACC) beat Duke (3-2, 0-1 ACC).

Duke attempted a strong surge in the fourth quarter. Duke’s zone offense was efficient and put up fifteen shots and three goals compared to one shot and one goal for Maryland. Duke’s Josh Dionne had a hat trick as well. However, thanks to exceptional play from sophomore goalie Niko Amano, Duke’s fourth quarter surge came four goals short.

Maryland will head to Baltimore on Tuesday to face UMBC (1-1) at 7PM. 

Maryland Dominates Virginia in ACC Quarterfinals, 70-58

After a day of several upsets and closely-fought contests in the Women’s ACC Tournament, the final game of the ACC Women's Basketball Tournament Quarterfinals proved to be a dominant display of basketball. ACC Player of the Year, Alyssa Thomas, had a team high 18 points going 7-13 from the field. Brene Moseley added 13 more off the bench, and in their first game of the ACC Tournament, third-seed Maryland cruised to an easy 70-58 victory over sixth-seed Virginia.

The game was never in question. Maryland jumped out to a 22-9 lead against Virginia early on in the game. This led to a 40-20 lead into halftime. Maryland (26-4, 12-4 ACC) pretty much cruised after the half. Virginia (22-10, 9-7 ACC) never managed to put the game seriously in question. The highest lead was 25; Virginia never managed to cut it to single digits. The score really does not dictate how dominant Maryland really was. Maryland shot 7-10 from the three, good for 70%. They won the rebound battle 43-21, and had 9 blocks. Maryland looked impressive and dominant from start to finish.

Maryland will play seventh-seed Wake Forest, who surprisingly beat second-seeded Miami 81-74 at 1:30PM on Saturday on ESPNU. Maryland is now the highest seeded team still in the field for the tournament. It also helps that Maryland was able to give the starters valuable time resting for the game tomorrow. That is one of the most valuable things in your conference tournament. If there was anything that could worry me about Maryland’s chances of winning, it would be one thing-- turnovers. Maryland committed 24 turnovers today. Even though the game was a blowout, that is still a lot of turnovers for a team with high aspirations like the Terrapins. Even with that minor issue, you have to feel comfortable about the Terrapins making a run at winning another ACC Championship this year.

Alyssa Thomas Wins ACC Player of the Year

The ACC announced yesterday that Alyssa Thomas is the 2012 ACC Player of the Year. Let's take a moment to applaud Alyssa Thomas as Player of the Year in a very stacked ACC that has three Top 10 squads. Thomas leads the team in scoring with 17.0 ppg, alongside 8.2 rpg, and 3.2 apg. She is the second sophomore to ever win the ACC's top honor. She is also the third Terrapin to win the award in the past five years. Thomas hopes to lead Maryland to another ACC Championship starting Friday at 8PM vs sixth-seed Virginia.

Welcome to Lonely Terrapin

If you’re here, odds are you’re a Maryland fan. Thus, you know the life a Terrapins fan leads. You know what it’s like to be a national champion, and you know what it’s like to be at the bottom of the barrel.

The goal of this site, however, is to show an alternative view of Maryland sports. This blog is here for the little guys—the non-revenue sports. Soccer, Baseball, Woman’s Basketball, Field Hockey, and Softball are a few of the sports covered here. On occasion, a big sport like basketball and football will be covered, but the focus here will be on the non-revenue sports. I feel these sports don’t get the kind of coverage that they deserve, and my goal is to try and bring these sports more to the forefront.

Let me tell you a bit about myself. I am a junior English major at Maryland and am a life-long Marylander. I work at the radio station on campus, WMUC 88.1. I’m a huge Tennessee Titans fan since I saw the Music City Miracle, but I bleed red, black, and gold.

I hope that this blog will point out all the great things that are being accomplished by the non-revenue, underreported sports at Maryland. Also, my shameless self-plug – feel free to follow me on my rarely-used twitter: @BoggsBurns.

With all that being said, I will try to blog to the best of my ability.