 "Photo: Allison Akers")
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - As the game clock ticked down to zero, Susie Rowe finally let up, relaxing her shoulders and skipping a bit toward midfield. The senior back flung her stick in the air like a graduation cap and embraced the nearest teammate, fellow senior Danielle Keeley.
The Terrapin field hockey team had just won the NCAA championship. The Terps defeated Wake Forest 4-2 Sunday at Trager Stadium in Louisville.
For the No. 1 Terps (22-2), it is the third title in four years. For Rowe, and the rest of the celebrated senior class, it was the perfect sendoff.
"It's really the icing on the cake," Rowe said. "Just the fairy tale ending to a fantastic four years I've had here, and that we've all had here. ... It's just great to have ended it where you started it."
The title match was billed as a heavyweight bout, fitting in the hometown of boxing legend Muhammad Ali. Including Sunday, the Terps and No. 2 Demon Deacons (22-4) have combined for six of the last seven NCAA titles.
The teams met twice this year prior to the national final, with the Terps besting the Demon Deacons in Winston-Salem, N.C. on Sept. 27 and again in the ACC championship game. But of the three matchups this season, Sunday's event was the most lopsided.
"Actually, it's a little bit surprising when I look at the score," coach Missy Meharg said. "Wake Forest is a fantastic team. We've certainly had our battles with them this year."
In the ACC championship game, the teams had three ties and four lead changes. Sunday, the Terps fell behind early when Demon Deacon forward Hilary Moore got a piece of a hard pass from outside the scoring circle.
Confident they would get the goal back, the Terps were able to translate dominance on the stat sheet into success on the scoreboard.
The Terps tied the score in the 25th minute, finally converting on one of their six first-half penalty corners. As she has so many times before, forward Nicole Muracco deftly deflected a crisp pass from Rowe into the back of the net.
But unlike the ping-pong match of an ACC final, the Terps pulled even, then pulled away.
Several minutes later, Katie O'Donnell tallied the eventual game-winner right before the half. The fleet forward accelerated past her defender into the scoring circle where she deked the goalie Crystal Duffield and poked the ball in.
"I've been saying, if you can beat them twice, you can beat them three times," Meharg said. "We opened up in the second half in a really, really aggressive personnel, and really bumped up and went for broke."
As the Demon Deacons came onto the field, the Terps were waiting. Players bounced confidently up and down, looking like Ali in the ring.
With a 2-1 lead after one half of play, the Terps were in search of a knockout.
Rowe, looking like she took a punch with the stitches in her nose she earned Friday against Iowa, provided that blow just seven minutes into the half. She took a simple feed off of a penalty corner and belted a shot that skipped up and over the diving Duffield.
Though the Terps let in a late goal, the game was in hand for most of the half. It was an authoritative performance from the nation's top team.
"This weekend, it takes you back a bit just thinking, 'Wow, we're one of the top four teams in the nation,'" O'Donnell said. "Now after this game you can say, 'I am the No. 1 team in the nation.'"
Out on the turf, the Rowe-Keeley embrace soon led to a mob at midfield, where the team chanted a chorus of "Natty Chips." When you win titles as often as the Terps, you get to be on a nickname basis.
Still, there's no championship quite like the last one.
"It's so special, when you're a senior, you never know which game's going to be your last game when it comes to tournament time," Rowe said. "I was just praying that the last game wouldn't come until [today]. Really, this is the most special national championship there ever is. It's kind of greedy of me."
And while Keeley said it was "bittersweet" knowing her Terp career had finished, Meharg said the ending was "like a good song."
Posing for pictures at midfield, the Terps' oversized "National Championship" T-shirt resembled a graduation gown on the seniors. And as for the National Championship trophy, there's no better diploma.
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