A late, great No. 8

Ten minutes into the first overtime period of a deadlocked national-title game, Jill Witmer waited near the midfield spot along the sideline at Trager Stadium, recovering and watching as Jemma Buckley ran off the field to make way for her.

Normally, the Terrapins field hockey forward would have had the green light. But coach Missy Meharg held her up for a second, waiting for the right moment to insert Witmer.

She found it. Seconds after stepping onto the field, Witmer took a pass from midfielder Steffi Schneid and began streaking toward the right corner. Witmer split three of top-seeded North Carolina defenders almost instantly, her speed taking them out of the play as she sprinted toward the shooting circle with only midfielder Taryn Gjurich trailing her.

Gjurich stumbled as Witmer blew past her, leaving ACC Defensive Player of the Year Caitlin Van Sickle as the Tar Heels' last line of defense. Witmer wound up from the right of the cage and sent a rocket toward the left corner, watching the ball as it sailed over goalkeeper Sassi Ammer for the game-winning tally.

Within seconds, the team's bench flooded the Louisville, Ky., field, enveloping Witmer in celebration. The 3-2, overtime win marked the Terps' second straight NCAA Tournament championship — and eighth overall — and the first title ever captured by an unseeded team.

"I got the ball and I had to get past three girls. I got around the first one pretty easily and I was just like, OK, I'm going to go the whole way," Witmer said of her game-winning goal, her first since an Oct. 19 victory over Towson. "That was pretty much my mentality: Just go to the goal and don't stop."

With as dramatic of an ending as Witmer's goal provided, it shouldn't have been surprising she almost never got the opportunity. Tar Heels forward Elizabeth Stephens scored her second goal of the game with less than eight minutes to play in the second half, giving the Tar Heels a formidable 2-0 lead.

But just minutes later, forward Katie Gerzabek tipped in the Terps' first goal of the afternoon to halve the deficit.

"The energy for Maryland was just absolutely desperate," said Meharg, whose team defeated Old Dominion, 4-0, in the semifinals Friday. "It was really just absolute discipline, fortitude and the intangibles that this team has had."

It looked as if the Terps might run out of time against a stout North Carolina defense, but with less than 30 seconds remaining, the team was awarded a penalty corner that gave it one final chance to net an equalizer.

As the final buzzer sounded, Tibble stopped the penalty-corner serve from midfielder Janessa Pope and pushed the ball to midfielder Jemma Buckley. Buckley flung the ball through five defenders and into the back of the cage, sending the game to overtime.

"With no time on the clock, it was our last chance," Buckley said. "I said to Missy, ‘I have a feeling we're going to score.'"

In overtime, it was Witmer's turn to shine. Her shot was the only one the Terps took in the final period, but it was the only one that mattered.

"She just took off and went one on four, which we know she can do," Meharg said. "I knew she would take the shot, and I knew if it was on goal it was going to go in."

Yesterday's battle was the third consecutive meeting between the Terps and Tar Heels in the title game, and the second straight season the Terps won it all in overtime.

For Witmer, this one proved understandably incomparable.

"This one just has more meaning to it," Witmer said. "We made it this far and we were the underdogs. Everything just wasn't going our way, but we just started playing as a team and things just clicked. We were down and we came back. It was so much more special."

vitale@umdbk.com