COLLEGE PARK, Md. – The #17 Old Dominion Field Hockey team fell to #4 Maryland, 3-0 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament on Friday. The Monarchs outshot Maryland,10-7 and also took more corners, 5-3.
Maryland opened the scoring 10 minutes into the first quarter on a penalty corner. ODU (14-6, 6-1) had a corner late in the opening quarter, but the shot by Sacha de Gier was sent wide. The Monarchs (14-6) matched the Terrapins (17-5) with three shots in the first quarter but couldn't score. Maryland extended its lead seven minutes into the second quarter on another penalty corner and would hold ODU to zero shots to take a 2-0 lead into the half.
The Monarchs came out of the break determined, ripping five shots at Maryland's keeper with her saving three of them. The Terrapins then added a third goal on a counterattack late in the third quarter. Old Dominion would trail 3-0 going into the fourth quarter and were able to get two shots off but couldn't find the back of the cage.
"It's a really disappointing outcome. We felt like we were ready to go and we were ready to play hard against a good team. We were able to do that and the bounces unfortunately didn't go our way in the key parts of the game.," said head coach Andrew Griffiths.
"We played hard until the very end and we pulled our keeper and we had chances all throughout the game and just couldn't put them in."
"We had pretty good control of the game as we outshot them 10-7 and out cornered them 5-3. They are a very good team and they played really well but we played right with them. We didn't sit back and wanted to attack them and in the first seven seconds we had a cross that a player just missed it on the far post and we were inches away from making this result flip the other way," said Griffiths.
Old Dominion's 12-game winning streak was snapped, but the Monarchs advanced to their first NCAA Tournament in 10 years, winning the program's first BIG EAST Tournament Championship.
#17 ODU Field Hockey Falls To #4 Maryland In NCAA Tournament
