For men's lacrosse, a Cummings-out party

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – Ever since they shared offensive duties on the same vaunted attack line for Loyola Blakefield's boys' lacrosse team during its MIAA Championship run in 2008, Steele Stanwick and Joe Cummings have seen their paths diverge slightly.

Both players have enjoyed successes at the Division I level, but it's been Stanwick, a first-team All-America attackman on Virginia, who has been the center of attention among fans and media. Meanwhile, Cummings, a midfielder for the Terrapin men's lacrosse team, has flown slightly under the radar.

The focus on Stanwick in the lead-up to Saturday's showdown between the old teammates and league foes was hardly surprising. The junior was again leading the Cavaliers in scoring with 39 points, far outpacing the 16 Cummings had entering the game.

But at the conclusion of the No. 5 Terps' 12-7 victory over No. 9 Virginia, it wasn't Stanwick who had made the biggest impact in a crucial game for both teams. Instead, that honor went to his former high-school teammate.

Cummings paced the Terps' offense with four goals Saturday, tying a career high and recording the 12th multi-goal game of his career.

Cummings' tallies came at critical junctures for the Terps, who trailed Virginia for the majority of the first half. The junior's first goal — a quick-stick finish just outside the crease that came after receiving a feed from attackman Owen Blye behind the cage — started the Terps' decisive seven-goal run, which lasted less than 25 minutes and spanned from the end of the second quarter until 10:09 remained in the final frame of action.

Cummings proved to be a mismatch for the Cavaliers' defense, which failed to cover the converted attackman on the crease numerous times Saturday. Using pick-and-roll plays with fellow midfielders John Haus, Drew Snider and Jake Bernhardt and quick cuts from the outside-in, Cummings regularly found himself wide open in the field's most contested area — the patch of grass right in front of Virginia goalkeeper Adam Ghitelman.

"He's just a great off-ball player," Virginia coach Dom Starsia said. "We talked about kind of anticipating what he likes to do, but [if] you turn your head for a second, then he can take advantage. He's just one of the better off-ball guys in the country. It wasn't so much covering the ball as it was covering up that second guy. A second guy like that, he's really able to take advantage."

Cummings also showed off his dodging ability by scoring arguably the game's prettiest goal with just more than four minutes remaining in the third quarter. After working behind the cage with attackman Ryan Young, Cummings sprinted around the right side of the crease at full speed before stopping on a dime as Virginia midfielder Bobby Hill stumbled clumsily to the ground.

With an open lane to the goal, Cummings took one more step around the crease before throwing multiple fakes and beating Ghitelman easily to the opposite post.

"It's just a read in game, and that's the play that we run," Cummings said of the goal. "Ryan [Young] made the right pass and put me in a good position to finish the shot. Thankfully, the guy slipped, so I had a pretty open opportunity to finish the shot."

On a team already boasting three established starters at attack, Cummings was forced to switch to midfield upon arriving in College Park his freshman year. But the Towson native overcame the transitional difficulties with ease, working his way up the depth chart before meshing seamlessly with the Terps' first midfield unit this season.

It was that smooth transition — and the kind of career days he's posted in games against UMBC and Virginia this season — that prompted coach John Tillman to urge Cummings to become more of a vocal leader at midfield. Last week, the first-year coach pulled Cummings aside and asked him to take on a more visible role for a Terp team coming off a deflating loss to North Carolina.

"‘Just so you know, your time is now. You can't wait until next year. You're a leader,'" Tillman recalled telling Cummings. "He and I went back and forth, and I said, ‘You've been around Maryland lacrosse for a long time. You should be one of the main leaders on offense. We've been knocked around, but we'll come back. I need you to be more demonstrative and more vocal.'"

Cummings willingly obliged Tillman's request, earning the team's hard-hat award in practice last week before following it up with the kind of showing many expected of Stanwick.

"We all stepped up. I think everybody lifted their level of play," Cummings said. "Coming off of last week's loss, we all took it personally. Individually, everybody got better this week."

jengelke@umdbk.com