Terps triumph in ACC tournament

CARY, N.C. - As the final horn sounded on the Terrapin men's soccer team's 1-0 ACC tournament championship victory against Virginia yesterday, midfielder Graham Zusi raised his arms in celebration. Nearby, tournament MVP Jeremy Hall hopped up and down, hugging any teammate in his path.

Defender A.J. Delagarza, one of the team's remaining players from the 2005 national title team, received the trophy and brought it to his huddling teammates with a wide smile on his face.

Despite a regular season in which they finished with the second-best record in coach Sasho Cirovski's 16-year tenure and were ranked in the top 10 throughout, the No. 5 Terps came into this tournament missing a signature moment.

By winning their third-ever ACC championship - the first since 2002 - the Terps (18-3-0) earned that moment, giving this year's team a special place in program history.

The players showed that with their celebrations after the game.

"I'm extremely happy and proud of our team," Cirovski said. "We made this a primary goal of ours this year. The challenge for them was to find their identity."

Behind a stout defensive backline, which didn't allow a goal in the Terps' three tournament wins, and a third-minute goal from Hall, this Terps' squad distinguished itself from other solid Terp teams of recent memory as ACC champions.

For Delagarza, it meant the senior now has a National and ACC title on his resumé.

"It's great coming in my senior year," Delagarza said. "It's a great way to go out. Definitely, with three shutouts, it was better. I couldn't believe it, especially with the caliber of the teams we played."

Delagarza, along with fellow defenders Omar Gonzalez, Rich Costanzo, Rodney Wallace and freshman goalkeeper Zac MacMath were nearly flawless yesterday.

They trapped and pestered Virginia forward Brian Ownby, who had two goals and an assist in the Cavaliers' first two wins of the tournament, which included a 3-2 double overtime win against No. 1 Wake Forest.

They shut down Virginia counterattacks quickly, and MacMath only had to make five saves and a couple of routine punch-outs on crosses and corners.

Since the Terps' 5-3 loss at Clemson on Oct. 3, the team has allowed only five goals in 11 games. Not coincidentally, the Terps are on an 11-game winning streak.

"I think it's a mixture of experience and talent," Delagarza said of the Terps' defensive success. "We have all different types of variety of experience, but we work well together. We talk well, that's probably the main part of our success throughout this tournament."

Hall scored the lone goal of the game on a cross from forward Casey Townsend early on. The junior slid across the box just in front of the Cavalier defender marking him, getting his right foot onto the ball and sending it past Virginia goalkeeper Michael Giallombardo into the top of the netting.

For Hall, who also scored the Terps' lone goal in their 1-0 win against North Carolina in Wednesday's quarterfinal, it was comforting knowing one goal might be all that was needed to win the title.

"Sasho preached before we got here that it was going to take the best defensive team to win this tournament," Hall said. "We proved that. Our defense didn't give up a goal, and it just shows how much we were willing to fight defensively. That was the difference."

Hall joined Gonzalez, MacMath and Townsend on the all-tournament team. While Cirovski acknowledged it was time to get ready for the upcoming NCAA tournament, his sense of pride in his team's accomplishment yesterday was evident.

The ACC tournament has proven difficult for the Terps, and other top teams, to win through the years.

After Friday's semifinal win against Boston College, Cirovski remarked how it had been "too long" since the Terps were in the position they were in yesterday. Wake Forest coach Jay Vidovich, who despite having won the national title last year and having an undefeated squad before losing to Virginia, said he felt jinxed in the ACC tournament.

"When you get to the finals of this tournament, you know you're good enough to win a national tournament," Cirovski said. "I think there's a sense of confidence from the accomplishment this weekend [and] the way that we're playing."

With yesterday's tournament championship - coupled with No. 3 St. John's loss in the Big East championship - the Terps are now in good position to earn a top four seed in the NCAA tournament, which means home field until the College Cup in Frisco, Texas.

And, in their typical style, Cirovski, Hall and Delagarza already started to talk about winning the national title, even moments after their biggest and most memorable win of the season.

"I have a team of a bunch of competitors and a bunch of winners," Cirovski said. "They take my challenges seriously, and I'm going to give them one more challenge in the locker room today."

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