Another promising season for the Terps ended in Memorial Day misery.
Maryland men’s lacrosse head coach John Tillman always believes in keeping heads pointed straight ahead, focused on the immediate future. But the first question he fielded in 2025 was about the past.
“[If I] say anything about last year, we didn’t finish the job,” Tillman said.
With the 15-5 loss to Notre Dame in the 2024 title game hanging above the team and the calendar not yet flipped to February, questions arose over how the Terps would respond in 2025.
Maryland improved, but fell short again in the end yet again. It lost the Big Ten championship to Ohio State and the national championship to Cornell. The program that has gone 2-7 in title games under Tillman will feel the déjà vu when it reconvenes in 2026.
Defining Tillman’s tenure by that statistic is reductive. Making nine title games over fifteen years is an incredible feat. Maryland administrators aren’t concerned — as evidenced by Tillman’s contract extension to 2030 — and he remains one of the game’s most respected coaches.
But with the Terps so close to the summit, there’s a subtle sense of desperation. Will Schaller and Eric Kolar called the championship loss a moment they would never forget. Plenty of moments from 2025 will live with the Terps as their heads turn back towards what lies ahead.
Nonconference play
Tillman likes to play quality teams early, and 2025 was no exception. Four of Maryland’s first five opponents advanced to the NCAA quarterfinals.
A 12-7 opening-day victory over Richmond — the surprise member of that aforementioned quartet — looks even better now. Maryland led 11-2 before pulling its starters in the fourth quarter.
Optimism dipped following a matchup with Loyola Maryland, where the Terps needed five fourth-quarter goals and overtime to win 8-7. Maryland didn’t score for over 22 minutes, a stark contrast from the game before.
But all that was quickly forgotten as the Terps conquered the gauntlet. Maryland got through consecutive games against then-No. 2 Syracuse, then-No. 5 Princeton and then-No. 1 Notre Dame unscathed. The defense allowed 10 or fewer goals in each game, Will Schaller emerged as a star and Logan McNaney finally looked fully recovered from his 2023 ACL tear.
The Terps followed up that stretch — which saw them ascend to No. 1 in the country — with record-breaking wins over Delaware and Virginia. The 14-3 victory over the Blue Hens was Maryland’s best defensive outing in a decade, and the 12-6 victory over the Cavaliers was the program’s landmark 900th win.
Against Virginia, the warning signs appeared again, as Maryland went over 26 minutes scoreless; yet, the Terps’ impressive body of work left them 7-0 and atop the national rankings.
Big Ten play
In conference play, inconsistency reared its ugly head once again. Either side of a 13-8 victory over then-No. 7 Penn State, the Terps dropped games against unranked foes Michigan and Rutgers.
The Michigan loss was frustrating. Through four quarters, Maryland’s defense was uncharacteristically bad, and the offense barely kept it afloat. When the game went to overtime, the script flipped: Michigan didn’t get a shot off in the first two overtimes, and the Terps’ offense became sloppy. Michigan scored in triple overtime off of Maryland’s 21st turnover of the afternoon, ending the undefeated start to Maryland’s season.
But the Rutgers loss was inexcusable. Having rebounded from Michigan with a solid Senior Day victory over Penn State, the Terps scored just six goals against the Scarlet Knights, going through separate 17, 20 and 14-minute scoring droughts. The defense tightened up only after allowing Rutgers to score five in the first quarter and secure its first win over Maryland since 1980.
Suddenly, Maryland was 1-2 in Big Ten play. Its last two regular season games were critical. The Terps jumped out to a 9-3 halftime lead before sealing the deal against then-No. 2 Ohio State, and a fourth-quarter surge secured a less-than-comfortable victory in “The Rivalry” against Johns Hopkins to spare any blushes.
Postseason
With other results going its way, Maryland secured the No. 2 seed in the conference. Maryland again used a fourth-quarter flurry in a 10-8 win over Penn State in the Big Ten Tournament semifinals, and held its opponent to eight goals for the fifth consecutive game.
The Terps’ defense tripped out of the gates against Ohio State in the championship. The Buckeyes turned six of eight first-quarter shots on goal into scores, and Maryland couldn’t accelerate its offense enough to avoid a 14-10 defeat.
Maryland earned the No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament for just the fourth time in its history. Victories over unseeded Air Force and Georgetown advanced Maryland to its 30th Final Four, breaking a tie with Johns Hopkins for the most such appearances ever.
The national semifinal, a rematch against Syracuse, was all Maryland early. After giving up a goal on the first possession, the Terps scored eight unanswered, all but booking their place in the national championship before the break. Syracuse tried to fight back, but Maryland’s defense stayed tall, booking a championship spot with a 14-8 win.
The No. 2-seed Terps met No. 1-seed Cornell in a rematch of the 2022 final. There, they ran into Tewaaraton winner CJ Kirst, whose six goals in the championship tied the Division I single-season scoring record. The Terps offense, which is engineered to soak up clock, tried to keep pace with the top-ranked attack in the country but ran out of steam, condemning Maryland to a 13-10 title loss.
Looking forward
Maryland will lose major contributors, particularly on the defensive side. Graduate students McNaney, defender Jackson Canfield, long stick midfielder Jack McDonald and short stick defensive midfielder Zack Goorno are all major losses; so are midfielder Bryce Ford and attacker Daniel Kelly, who finished third and tied-fourth on the team in points.
McNaney will be the biggest loss, but he also has the clearest replacement. Rising senior Brian Ruppel has prepared for the spotlight and should receive Tillman’s full backing entering the season. Behind him, four-star freshman Tyler Coryea and five-star rising freshman Aidan Seibel will have opportunities to develop.
Senior star Eric Spanos will return next season; defender Colin Burlace will not. For others in the class, including midfielders Zach Whittier and Matthew Keegan, the future is unclear.
Tillman has already attacked the portal, seeking out transfer infusions; at the time of writing, they have a distinctly New England flavor.
A trio of Yale transfers — attacker Chris Lyons, attacker Leo Johnson and defender Mikey Alexander — address immediate needs.
Lyons (30G, 11A) and Johnson (26G, 20A) were the only Bulldogs to clear 40 points through Yale’s 12 games this year. They’ll join Spanos, Braden Erksa, Whittier and Keegan (if the latter pair returns) as the probable starting offense for the Terps; their pre-existing rapport could ease the transition process.
Alexander will presumably fill the shoes of one of Maryland’s departing defenders. The other spot alongside Schaller will likely be filled by Peter Laake or Riley Reese, who missed the 2025 season due to injury.
But the most pivotal newcomer for the Terps is faceoff specialist Henry Dodge. The Vermont transfer led the country with a 71.3% win rate from the X, and his 8.5 ground balls per game ranked fourth nationwide. He offers Maryland an alpha at the X in the mold of Luke Wierman.
Faceoffs won’t just be a Dodge show, though. Freshman Jonah Carrier had a promising season, and sophomore Sean Creter showed flashes before sustaining a season-ending injury. The trio could turn what was one of Maryland’s greatest weaknesses in 2025 into a strength moving forward.
The Terps have promising unknowns, too. Five-star freshman attackers Johnny Gardiner and Spencer Ford redshirted in 2025, and five-star attacker Matthew Higgins arrives next year. The midfield is deep — Maryland has five incoming four-stars, and as evidenced by Jack Schultz this year, age is irrelevant.
No matter who takes the field, the Terps want to finish the job. Maryland looked a far better team than 2024 but again ran into an even better team on Memorial Day. With those consecutive years of pain on their shoulders, 2025 could end up the crest of the wave — or 2026 could be the year these players exorcise their demons.