For women's soccer, a win and in

Olivia Wagner knows there's another important game tonight.

While the Terrapins women's soccer team takes on No. 11 North Carolina at Ludwig Field, Miami and No. 9 Virginia will battle concurrently nearly three hours down the road in Charlottesville, Va., in a game that could ultimately save — or end — the Terrapins women's soccer team's season.

The junior midfielder doesn't want it to come to that.

"I don't think that you can ever 100 percent tune anything out, but what we want to do is go in and get a win because that will be what's best for our team right now," said Wagner, who knows the No. 16 Terps will clinch an ACC Tournament berth with a win. "Anything less than that will be more of a disappointment, so right now we're just concentrating on winning. If the result helps us, then that's great."

The Terps occupy the eighth and decisive spot in the ACC standings, with ninth-place Miami one point behind in the conference. If the Terps win, they're in as the No. 7 seed in the ACC Tournament. If they lose or tie, they'll need the Cavaliers to defeat or tie the Hurricanes.

Both matchups kick off at 7 p.m., but coach Brian Pensky said he'll remain willfully oblivious of all games but his own.

"We're not going to worry about that until our game is long gone," Pensky said.

He added, "That won't change one thing about how we play and what we need. Our team needs a result. If we wind up getting in because Miami loses and we lose, we'll be very excited to be playing on Sunday and very confident in playing whoever we're playing. We'll be torn up that we've now lost three games in a row. Our focus is absolutely, 100 percent, on ourselves and not anything else."

Pensky said he discussed the tournament scenarios with his team before Sunday's loss at No. 4 Duke, but he hasn't yet this week.

Still, the Terps (9-4-4, 3-4-2 ACC) know what is at stake when they take the field tonight against the Tar Heels (11-3-1, 6-2-1).

The team hasn't missed the ACC Tournament since 2008, when its current seniors were only freshmen. Given the high hopes with which the Terps began the season, an absence from the league tournament — and perhaps the NCAA Tournament — would be a shocking end.

"I think we're all embracing it," forward Jasmyne Spencer said. "It's the first-ever night game against UNC [for the seniors]. It's a game versus UNC in general. It's senior night. It's kind of a make-or-break possibility for the ACC Tournament. I just think it's one of those games every athlete lives for. I think we're real ready and everyone's going to get up for it and it's going to be a great game."

And even if they beat the Tar Heels to advance to the ACC Tournament, the road doesn't get any easier for the Terps, who would have to hit the road for their first-round ACC Tournament game and travel to either Duke, North Carolina, Virginia or Wake Forest.

But for now, the happenings outside College Park — either Sunday or tonight — are secondary to those tonight at Ludwig Field. A win, the team knows, and it's in.

"We're just taking one game at a time, and we know we can win this game," defender Skyy Anderson said. "We know we can win every game that we play, and sometimes we don't get the result we want. But we go into every game knowing we're going to win. That's our mentality."

dgallen@umdbk.com