Molloy’s Willis Reed
Moment BROWN STAR GUTS IT OUT ON BUM FOOT
Dylan Molloy emerged from the tunnel May 28 at Lincoln Financial Field about 25 minutes before opening faceoff, his Brown teammates well into their pre-game warm-up routine. He did some light calisthenics and then gingerly jumped into a shoot-around.
Athletic trainers watched
closely. Molloy played catch with backup goalie Brad Peters, then with Bailey Tills, the teammate who performed so well in his place in the Bears’ NCAA quarterfinal win over Navy. Molloy twirled his stick with nervous energy.
This was the final four,
Brown’s first since 1994. There was no way Molloy wasn’t playing. “I needed to be out there,” he said. Molloy, the country’s top scorer with 116 points (62 goals, 54 assists), received a lidocaine injection so he could play on a broken right foot. He sustained the injury — a Jones fracture of the fifth metatarsal — in the Bears’ first-round blowout of Johns Hopkins.
“He is one of the toughest men to ever put a lacrosse helmet on,” Brown coach Lars Tiffany said. “Dylan was in the training room eight hours a day. We were delivering Chipotle to him, so he didn’t have to leave.” The Bears lost to top- seeded Maryland 15-14 in overtime. Molloy was more than a decoy. He scored two goals and helped the Bears rally from four goals down to force overtime in a classic NCAA semifinal.
40 LACROSSE MAGAZINE
— Matt DaSilva » July/august 2016
The Curse Continues
THIS MARYLAND LOSS WAS A BIT MORE WRENCHING It happened again.
Maryland came tantalizingly close to ending the most talked about championship drought in lacrosse, only to fall short again. This time was a bit more wrenching. It was Maryland’s fourth trip to Memorial Day in six years under coach John Tillman, but it was the first time the Terps could be considered the best team in the country. The 2011 and 2012 iterations were unseeded. Last year, Maryland was the No. 6 seed. In both 2012 (Loyola) and 2015 (Denver), the Terps faced better, deeper teams. While this year’s Maryland team wasn’t about to evoke memories of Gait-era Syracuse teams, the mid-1990s Princeton dynasty or 2006 Virginia, it was the country’s most complete group. Its defense rarely looked vulnerable until the final weekend of the season. It had one of the nation’s best goalies in Kyle Bernlohr and a balanced offense. Since last winning the NCAA title in 1975, the Terps have advanced to 19 final fours and nine championship games, only to come away empty-handed in each.
W 1976
Before the advent of sudden-death overtime, the top-seeded Terps forced OT on a buzzer-beater and went up one early in the extra frame before Cornell scored four unanswered goals to win 16-13.
W 1997
The most dominant team of the Princeton dynasty — led by attack greats Jesse Hubbard, Jon Hess and Chris Massey — thrashed Maryland 19-7 in the most lopsided championship game in NCAA history.
W 2012
The Terps again made it to Memorial Day as an unseeded team, only to bow out against Eric Lusby and top-seeded Loyola 9-3.
W 1979
Johns Hopkins, which eliminated Maryland in the 1977 and 1978 semifinals, defeated the Terps 15-9. Future Hall of Famers Jeff Cook and Dave Huntley scored three goals apiece for the Blue Jays.
W 1998
Princeton again, this time with a 15-5 victory over the Terps to complete the three- peat.
W 1995
Syracuse downed Maryland 13-9 in College Park, throwing cold water on the Terps just two days after Brian Dougherty delivered an epic 23-save performance to get them to the final for the first time in 16 years.
W 2011
Colin Briggs returned from a suspension to score four goals and Virginia turned to a zone defense to thwart Maryland, which was trying to become the first unseeded team to win an NCAA title in Tillman’s first season. The Cavaliers won 9-7.
W 2015
Maryland was on the wrong side of history again. Wesley Berg scored five goals to lift Denver to a 10-5 win over the Terps, as the Pioneers became the first NCAA champion from west of the Appalachians.
W 2016
Chris Cloutier scored his NCAA tournament-record 19th goal in overtime to lift North Carolina to its first title in 25 years with a 14-13 victory over Maryland. The top-seeded Terps coughed up a two-goal lead late in regulation.
A Publication of US Lacrosse
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