A familiar ending to an unusual year

When asked whether her Terrapins field hockey team had reached all of its goals this season just days after winning its eighth national championship, Missy Meharg could do little but let out a small laugh.

"It's hard to say whether we did or didn't beat them," the longtime coach said, "because we didn't really make them."

Turns out they didn't need to. The unseeded Terps made an improbable run through their NCAA Tournament gauntlet, ending their season by scoring three unanswered goals in less than 15 minutes against top-seeded North Carolina to clinch the 2011 national championship with a 3-2 overtime victory Sunday.

Their journey there wasn't without difficulties, however. As the Terps neared the postseason, the fact that they hadn't set any title goals looked like a good thing. The team lost three of its last seven games entering the national tournament and at that point, a second straight national championship seemed unlikely, even to Meharg.

"Halfway through the season, I would not have thought that we were going to be good enough in mid-November to beat Old Dominion and Carolina," Meharg said. "That was a long shot in my mind."

But after the final loss in that seven-game stretch — a 2-1 defeat against Duke in the ACC Tournament — something clicked for the Terps. Just as a midseason loss to Princeton propelled them to an undefeated run to the national championship in 2010, their loss to the Blue Devils marked a game many on the team described as the starting point of a potent finishing flourish.

"The way we trained from the minute we got knocked out by Duke, it was evident to me that there was something very deep in their intangibles, in their gut," Meharg said. "The way they performed was just unbelievable. From that morning on, every time we trained and played a hockey match, we got better and better. It was crazy contagious. I've never seen a group like that."

The Terps continued to use their early exit as fuel throughout the national tournament. Even though it was unseeded, the team blew through its first-round opponent Iowa, 4-2, before knocking No. 3 seed Syracuse out in overtime to advance to the Final Four for a fourth straight year.

Awaiting the Terps there, however, were the two teams that accounted for all of the team's three regular season losses: Old Dominion and North Carolina. The team avenged both of those losses soon enough, first dismantling the No. 2 seed Lady Monarchs, 4-0, and then completing a furious comeback against the No. 1 Tar Heels. Jill Witmer's overtime goal — her first score since Oct. 19 — made the Terps the first unseeded team in the tournament's history to capture the title.

"Did we overachieve with the teams in the field? Yes," Meharg said. "If you look at both those teams that we beat this weekend, statistically, both teams had a lot of opportunities. We were just better with our opportunities."

While the underdog role suited the Terps well in their postseason run this season, they won't have that luxury in their title defense. Among starters, only senior goalkeeper Melissa Vassalotti and senior midfielder Jemma Buckley are not expected to return, leaving the Terps with very few changes to make to a newly crowned roster.

Inserting a new backstop in the cage will be a mostly seamless transition for the Terps, who saw sophomore Natalie Hunter gain a wealth of experience playing alongside Vassalotti this season. The two keepers alternated starts in goal in September — each started five of the team's first 10 games — offering Hunter ample time to prepare for a feature role in her junior season.

"I learned from [Melissa] just by watching her play and that definitely helps me out. She's a winner and she's a mentor," said Hunter, who totaled 10 saves and allowed seven goals in the games she started. "It's always been a dream to play on the Maryland field, and any opportunity I get to do that … I'm excited and ready."

Replacing Buckley, however, will likely be more difficult. The All-American was an attacking force for the Terps throughout the season, leading the Terps with 22 goals scored, including four in the NCAA Tournament and five game winners this year.

"It opens up the opportunity for other goal scorers on the squad to be more prolific," Meharg said. "We've got players on the team right now that have been corner-hitters their whole lives, so we're going to take this spring, start to develop them and see where we are."