terps men’s soccer concludes solid regular season; faces uva in acc tournament

The defending National Champion Terps men’s soccer team wrapped up another successful year with a win against College of Charleston this weekend.  With the win the Terps finished regular season play with a 12-4-2 record.  Considering their tough schedule this was pretty impressive.

Maryland enters the ACC Tournament ranked #6 in the nation.  Their first postseason game will be against #7 UVA in Cary, NC, on Wednesday afternoon.  It’s a tough draw, but at least UVA is an out-of-towner, too, so Maryland will be on a truly neutral field.  UNC is #2 in the country and Wake is #4, so the ACC Tournament will be a dress rehearsal for the NCAA Tournament.

The NCAA Tournament starts on 11/20.  It’s been another great season for the defending champs.  The Terps have a legitimate shot at repeating, so stay tuned.

Men’s soccer team facing another big showdown with Wake

Terp leading scorer Jason Herrick. I knew a Jason Herrick when I was back in elementary school. Great.

The #5 Terp men’s soccer team has a big showdown this Saturday with #3 Wake Forest.

You may recall that the Terps lost a close one to Wake last year. You may also recall that the Terps are defending national champs. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Wake.

But yes, big game. ACC catbird seat up for grabs in Winston-Salem. Go Terps.

P.S., on another soccer note, big ups to ex-Terp defender Omar Gonzalez, who won MLS Rookie of the Year. Soccer America magazine, which gives out the award, is a little squirelly with their links, so you’ll just have to trust me. Congrats to Omar.

(Photo credit: UMTerps.com)

Soccer team playing for hospitalized teammate

The Terp men’s soccer team is traveling to Georgetown this afternoon. But it’s more than #6 Maryland’s big game against a local rival and the #16 squad. On Saturday night, starting defender Alex Lee was struck by a car as he was crossing a street in D.C. (I’m surprised it wasn’t Route 1.) Luckily, he’s expected to recover, but for now he’s hospitalized in stable condition.

The team was already playing with heavy hearts after the Oct. 5 passing of longtime Terp athletics supporter Jack Heise, for whom a soccer scholarship is named.

Good luck to the team today against Georgetown and, more importantly, to Alex Lee in his recovery from the injury. Go Terps!

Update: The Terps beat Georgetown 2-1, and Alex Lee was released from the hospital. Kudos and respect to all.

big wins for maryland soccer and field hockey

Feeling down? Kevin Tangney has one word for you: GOOOOOOAL!

Are you feeling a little down because Maryland football sucks this year?

Do you miss the thrill of basketball season?

Does the Fall remind you of all the promises you made but never kept?

Well I say, fret no more, friend!  There is more to life than football, basketball, and lamenting.   There is soccer and field hockey!  Maryland had a weekend of victory in these venerable Fall sports.

On Friday, in front of the biggest crowd ever to fill Ludwig Field, the #4 ranked and defending NCAA Champion Maryland Terrapins men’s soccer team upset #2 UNC.  Terrapin captain Kevin Tangney booted in a desperation shot in the 88th minute to propel the Terps to the win.  With the win, Maryland will likely secure the #1 spot in tomorrow’s rankings.

If that wasn’t enough excitement for one weekend, the #1 ranked defending NCAA Champion Maryland Terrapins field hockey team dismantled #3 ranked Wake Forest this Saturday.  Four different Terps scored in the 4-1 victory.  I tuned into the Game Tracker and saw the score was 1-1 at halftime.  The Terps poured on three goals in a nine minute span during the second half to beat their ACC rivals.

There are many reasons to be proud to be a Terp these days.  These two first class athletic programs are near the top of the list.

Former Barn Dweller Leads Terp Soccer Team

Do I smell musk

This Friday, it’s #4 Maryland vs. #2 North Carolina in a championship rematch. In case you forgot, the Terps are the defending champions, not the higher-ranked, blueblood, wine-and-cheese Tar Heels. Just clarifying for you.

With the exception of field hockey and maybe women’s lacrosse, the Terp men’s soccer team is currently the most dominant program in Maryland athletics. The Baltimore Sun has a really interesting article on the man behind the success, head coach Sasho Cirovski, who rose to prominence from nothing — and I’m talking like Eastern Bloc nothing, not America nothing. Seriously, he grew up in a barn. In a village called Vratnica. I would speculate that Vratnica may have an odor problem.

Occasionally I poke fun at Sasho for resembling one Joey Tribbiani. And I stand by that poking. But coach Cirovski built this program from jack squat, just like he done did his own self. You see? You see the symmetry there? The allemegoriness? It’s just too sweet. And I’d be crazy not to pick his group for the upset this Friday.

Huzzah! Soccer team captures the championship

Well, it wasn’t pretty, but the Maryland men’s soccer team got a goal midway through the second half and held on to grind out a 1-0 victory over North Carolina to win the national championship. GO TERPS!

Graham Zusi scored the game’s only goal after Jeremy Hall’s shot bounced off the UNC goalkeeper and went right to him. He collected the carom and rolled it into the corner of the net. Sweet. Zusi has to be the tourney MVP — he scored the only goal against St. John’s, too.

Both teams were clearly gassed after having just played on Friday, and stiff winds hampered the ball movement. So it was definitely a, uh, defensive struggle. But that seemed to play into the Terps’ hands…they were on the Tar Heels like glue. UNC didn’t even get a shot off in the first half and never really threatened. The crowd was overwhelmingly pro-Terps, with the “let’s go Maryland” chants raining down from the opening seconds. It was awesome to see our fans out in force like that.

No comment yet from Maryland head coach Joseph Tribbiani, but I imagine it will be something regarding Italian food and sexual conquests, in keeping with his unique brand of happy-go-lucky misogynism. In the meantime, HUGE congratulations to the entire team. Football may not have gone the way we wanted, and the basketball team is anybody’s guess, but between this and field hockey, the Terps have two titles so far this year. Not too shabby. GO TERPS!!!

(Photo credit: UMTerps.com)

Soccer game preview in 50 words or less

Game at Pizza Hut Park. PanNormous walls and breadstick columns. First 10,000 fans get free case of the runs. Tickets $1 with purchase of three tickets of equal or greater value.

Only 15 words left. Both teams tough, could be low-scoring, Terps on roll, they win. Tonight ESPNU 8pm, tomorrow ESPN2 11am. Goterps.

(Photo credit: UMTerps.com – these words don’t count)

Soccer team makes final four

Buenos dias. I have some beautiful news to share with you this morning, beautiful readers. And it has to do with the Maryland Soccer Team. Most Americans call it soccer, but to me, it is simply The Beautiful Game. That is what I like to call it. Because of the beauty, the passion, the artistry, the beauty, the majesty, and of course, the great great passion of its players and fans. So many congratulations, many bouquets both verbal and physical, are due now to the Maryland men’s The Beautiful Game team, who on Saturday made the Final Four (called the College Cup in soccer) with a 1-0 win over Creighton.

The Creighton coach said it was “probably the most we have been outplayed in any match in the last decade or longer.” Ah, yes. The game’s only goal came from Omar Gonzalez, who has a very very beautiful future in the professional ranks. I hope that a certain local pro team, who has fallen on hard times recently and may be in need of fresh blood, is paying attention.

The Terrapins join ACC mates North Carolina and the big juggernaut, top-ranked Wake Forest, in the cup. St. John’s, who will be Maryland’s next opponent this Saturday, rounds out the group. Dios mio, but I hope that Maryland continues to play The Beautiful Game with passion! I now kiss them, man to man, for good luck.

(Photo credit: One Game at a Time)

terps soccer slays the golden bears with wit and good looks, advances to elite 8

Although field hockey is getting all the attention these days, there is another Maryland athletic program making its way through the post-season.  The Terps avenged an early-season loss to Cal by beating the Bears 2-1 this Saturday.  They will face Creighton this Saturday at 1PM in College Park.

Junior forward Jeremy Hall.

The press has a made a big deal out of the fact that the team is coached by Matt LeBlanc, but coaches don’t win soccer games, goal scorers do.  I am copyrighting that phrase so don’t even think about using it.  Junior Jeremy Hall scored the game-winner with his 14th goal and 34th point in 23 games.  If I had to pick someone that Jeremy Hall resembled I’d have to go with field hockey player Katie O’Donnell because he, too, has such a nice smile.  Damn it, I can’t control these urges to write about the field hockey team!  I love your smile Katie!  Back to soccer…

The ACC is the dominant conference for mens’ soccer, but there are some solid mid-major programs out there and Creighton is one of them.  Maryland came into the tournament with the #4 RPI ranking, but the top 3 – Wake, St. Johns, and Indiana, are still in it. It’s great that we’re in the Elite 8, but the real test is yet to come.

Thank God for field hockey

Without field hockey, and men’s soccer, Terp fans wouldn’t have much to be proud of right now.

First, on Saturday the football team lost to BC to wrap up its season the way the mobsters wrapped up that dead fish in “The Godfather.” Meow Mix Bowl, here we come. Despite the crazy ups and downs, the team ended exactly where most people (including us) thought they would — smack in the middle of Mediocre Town. Maybe they can celebrate the season with mashed potato sandwiches and Miller Lite drafts at the Medicore Town Diner, followed by a lecture from Friedgen on the Jimmy Carter presidency. I can already hear the polite applause.

It’s a Sicilian message. It means
“welcome to the Meineke Car Care Bowl.”

So after that, the hoops team follows up a bad loss to Gonzaga with an even worse loss to Georgetown. The Hoyas took a scalpel to the Terps — it was clinical, it was ruthless, and it was humiliating. Outplayed, outcoached, outhustled, outeverythinged. When the Terps were on defense, the Hoyas slashed the interior to ribbons until the Terps packed the middle with a zone, at which point Georgetown simply knocked down open perimeter shots. When the Terps were on offense, the Hoyas screwed down on Vasquez, perhaps figuring that not only is Vasquez the team’s only consistent offensive threat, but that intense pressure was likely to force Vasquez into sloppy mistakes. The final Vasquez line: 2 points, 4 assists, 4 turnovers. But that wasn’t even the worst line of the night. For that, of course, we must go to the frontcourt, where, in 21 minutes of play, Braxton Dupree finished with 6 points, 1 turnover, zero blocks, and zero rebounds. Again, he got 21 minutes. Just FYI, Jerome Burney and Dino Gregory each got 4 rebounds in 8 minutes of play. Draw your own conclusions.

Bottom line: the football season ended with a whimper, and if the basketball team doesn’t treat this weekend as a wake-up call, they may not even get a whimper out before their cold dead carcass hits the hardwood. Better moments could be in store for the hoops team, but if the football team and previous basketball seasons are any indication, another up-and-down campaign will just mean more mashed potato sandwiches real soon. If they’re lucky. Gulp.