Field hockey rolls past Drexel and to Final Four

The top-seeded Terrapin field hockey team didn't just stop Drexel in the second round of the NCAA Tournament on Sunday. The Terps never allowed the Dragons to get started.

From the opening whistle, the No. 1 Terps (22-0) controlled the game. They didn't allow the No. 10 Dragons a shot in the first half and only three in the second, while piling on 33 of their own in the 5-0 victory to get into the Final Four.

Drexel goalie Jenna Phillips turned in a career performance, notching 16 saves. But the Terps overwhelmed the Dragon backfield, hardly ever letting the ball move past the 50-yard line and into Terp territory. Phillips couldn't hold up for 70 minutes under the continuous pressure.

"We just kept pounding her," forward Nicole Muracco said. "And eventually, the shots are going to go in. She played a great game, but you can't stop 33 shots. So I think that goes to everyone, just going in and getting the shots."

Muracco had the first shot that made it past Phillips more than 28 minutes into the game.

Up to that point, the Terps had seen seven shots batted away by the Dragon goalie and had five more shots miss the mark. Though the Terps had held possession for almost the entire game, their dominance did not show on the scoreboard.

But on a Terp fast break, Muracco raced into the circle and sent a rebounded shot into the cage for her 29th goal of the year, breaking the program single-season goal record.

That sparked the Terps. Less than two minutes later, the Terps had again moved inside the circle, and Muracco tapped a pass from midfielder Ameliet Rischen past Phillips for another score. Before the ball even rolled over the end line, her arm went up in celebration.

She knew it was going in.

"She is a natural goal scorer," Coach Missy Meharg said. "She has a nose for the goal, period. You really can't teach that final work."

The Terps went into halftime holding a 2-0 lead and a 17-0 shot advantage, and they never let up from that point on.

Forward Katie O'Donnell scored two minutes into the second half to keep the Terps' momentum going, and two goals in 22 seconds in the last five minutes of the match — by forward Janessa Pope and  midfielder Megan Frazer, respectively — completed the scoring barrage.

The Terp squad succeeded despite struggling on penalty corners. After going 3-for-5 on corners in Saturday's 6-1 first round win over American, they did not score on any of their 15 set plays on Sunday because of the Dragons' strong corner defense. Phillips stopped nine of the corner shots, and Drexel defenders blocked three more.

The Terp backfield held its own as well, even without starter Alicia Morawski, who was injured against the Eagles and will be out until Tuesday. But thanks to a dogged effort from the midfield, the defense rarely had to face the Drexel attack that upset No. 5 Connecticut 3-2 in Saturday's first round.

"Today, the dominance really came from the midfield in that we were really, really eager whenever they shifted the ball laterally," Meharg said. "I attribute our team defense to the movement in our center midfield."

kyanchulis@umdbk.com