SUNDAY, MAY 8 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ M2 D7
different ways,” Tillman said.
“He’s done a really good job of
keeping the goalie guessing.”
Two other Terps — Jack Koras
and Eric Malever — scored twice
against the Scarlet Knights. Wis-
nauskas and Jonathan Donville
each had three assists.
Maryland’s average margin of
victory is 8.9 goals, and only two
other teams across Division I —
Georgetown and Jacksonville —
have an average margin better
than five.
The Terrapins’ command be-
gins with a 63.1 win percentage o n
faceoffs, the second-best mark in
the nation. That p osition, primar-
ily manned by Luke Wierman,
gains possession for a prolific of-
fense that scores more goals than
any other Division I team (18.4).
The well-oiled attack is a clear
highlight of this team, but the
defense has also been solid, and
junior goalkeeper Logan Mc-
Naney (nine saves vs. Rutgers) has
shined in net.
Wierman won 20 of 26 faceoffs
against Rutgers, breaking the
school’s s ingle-season record with
236 faceoff wins. The Scarlet
Knights tried five different play-ers against him to no avail. Wier-
man entered this game off a sea-
son-worst o uting in the semifinal.
“He was displeased, and he was
super motivated,” Tillman said.
“He wanted to come out and re-
spond and respond well. There
was no feeling sorry for himself.
He w as a man on a mission.”
In the past 10 editions of the
NCAA tournament, Tillman’s Ter-
rapins have reached the national
championship game six times.
But they have lost on that stage
five times — and twice by a single
goal, including last year’s defeat
to Virginia. Maryland has long
been one of the nation’s premier
programs, but its only national
title breakthrough in nearly five
decades came in 20 17.
The Terps are nearly guaran-
teed the top overall seed in the
NCAA tournament field, which
will be announced Sunday, and
then what they hope will be a long
run will begin. Fans might be
skeptical if they focus on those
past championship game losses,
but all season, this Maryland
team has stormed through its
schedule, leaving few reasons to
doubt.quiet from there, and Bundy’s
bouncer with 5:20 remaining re-
stored the Hoyas’ five-goal advan-
tage.
Declan McDermott, Connor
Morin and Alex Tr ippi each
scored twice for the Hoyas, who
beat the Wildcats for the second
time in nine days.
It wasn’t the sharpest game for
Georgetown, which committed
16 turnovers and botched four
clears to help allow Villanova to
close within two goals with a pair
of scores in the final minutes. But
it still resulted in the Hoyas
hoisting a trophy.
“When you get to this time of
the year, you have to win with
your seniors, and our seniors
pulled this out,” Warne said. “We
just did enough, especially early
on jumping out to that 5-1 lead [in
the first quarter]. I think we did
enough to carry on and to be able
to walk away with it.”
Not long ago, the Hoyas were
an upstart. The victories over
Denver in the 2018 and 2019 Big
East finals were important mark-
ers in the program’s revival. Thefirst simply ended a long drought,
and the second provided valida-
tion the previous year wasn’t a
fluke.
Georgetown already was safely
in the NCAA tournament last
season when it made it three Big
East titles in a row. (The 2020
event was canceled because of the
coronavirus pandemic). Then the
Hoyas blasted Syracuse in a first-
round NCAA game, bringing it
within a victory of only the sec-
ond trip to Memorial Day week-
end in program history.
That was the backdrop for
Saturday’s celebration, one the
Hoyas savored but hope will not
be their last this month.
“It’s a true testament to the
culture we have here, and it
started with that class from 20 18,”
McElroy said. “Winning the first
one was great. The second one
was awesome. Every one keeps
getting better, but at this point,
we’re kind of used to it.
“It was a goal of ours since the
beginning of the year to win this
thing, but we kind of have bigger
goals this year.”BY PATRICK STEVENSThe veteran core of the
Georgetown men’s lacrosse team
arrived on campus looking to
help turn around a program
mired in mediocrity — in its best
moments — for the previous dec-
ade.
Saturday’s 14-12 defeat of Vil-
lanova at Cooper Field ensures
those players will leave the pro-
gram without having lost a Big
East Conference tournament
game in their careers.
Graham Bundy Jr. had three
goals and an assist to earn MVP
honors as the Hoyas (15-1) won
their fourth consecutive Big East
tournament and claimed the
league’s automatic berth to the
NCAA tournament.
Georgetown, which probably
will land the No. 2 or No. 3 seed in
the 18 -team field, will learn its
first-round opponent Sunday
night.
Fifth-year senior Owen McEl-
roy made 17 saves and TJ Haley
added three goals for the Hoyas,
who became the first team to win
the Big East tournament at home
since the event was established in
20 12.
Defenseman Gibson Smith IV,
a fifth-year senior, couldn’t help
thinking about the contrasts be-
tween the Hoyas’ 2018 title in the
event and this triumph. Four
years ago, Coach Kevin Warne
was still trying to reestablish a
program that hadn’t reached the
postseason since 2007 and had
become an afterthought in the
Big East.“First time we won this, we
were bawling together because
we just couldn’t believe it,” Smith
said. “Now, five years later, four
championships later, it doesn’t
get old. It’s special every single
time. It’s even more special this
time around because we did it at
Cooper Field at home in front of
our fans.”
Georgetown has won 11 in a
row since its lone setback of the
season, a 10 -8 stumble against
Princeton on March 5. It is the
second-longest winning streak in
the country behind undefeated
Maryland, which had won 13 con-
secutive games entering Satur-
day’s Big Ten title game.
Brett Baskin had four goals for
Villanova (9-6), which was seek-
ing its first NCAA appearance
since 20 18.
The Wildcats entered the
weekend as a potential bid-snatching chaos agent, a team
without any at-large prospects of
its own but capable of turning the
Big East into a multi-bid league
with an upset. Georgetown
showed little interest in permit-
ting that to happen.
Senior James Reilly won the
opening faceoff and scored six
seconds into the game. George-
town would build an 8-1 lead less
than 20 minutes into the game
and seemed on its way to a
stress-free, if soggy, afternoon.
“I really believe our guys were
ready to go early on,” Warne said.
“I felt like we came out of the gate
really hot and really focused.”
Villanova scored twice in the
final minute of the first half but
couldn’t cut the deficit to less
than five for much of the second
half. Matt Campbell’s goal with
11:59 to go brought the Wildcats
within 13-9, but Villanova wentBIG EAST MEN’S LACROSSE FINAL
Winning the conference isn’t getting old for Hoyas
GEORGETOWN 14,
VILLANOVA 12BY EMILY GIAMBALVOThe high-scoring Maryland
men’s lacrosse team continued its
perfect run through the season
with yet another commanding
performance, this time lifting a
trophy as the reward after the
final buzzer. The undefeated Ter-
rapins cruised past Rutgers, 17-7,
in the Big Ten tournament final,
leaning on their prolific attack
that generated a jolt of energy on
the sideline every few minutes as
they just kept scoring in the rain
all evening at Maryland S tadium.
By the end of their two-hour
run of dominance — emblematic
of what the Terps have shown all
year — Maryland’s p layers earned
a celebration with championship
T-shirts and a trophy presenta-
tion at midfield. Coach John
Tillman’s squad has now won the
Big Ten tournament four times in
the past six editions, dismantling
the Scarlet Knights with ease.
Maryland (14-0) — the only un-
defeated team in the nation, the
top-ranked program in Division I
and the No. 1 seed in the Big Ten
tournament — continues to reach
new heights. But the next three
weeks in the NCAA tournament —
and whether the Terps lift a na-
tional championship trophy on
Memorial Day — will determine
how this season is remembered.
“This was just a box we
checked,” standout attacker Lo-
gan Wisnauskas said. “We want to
ultimately get the main thing.”
What’s the main thing? “Win-
ning the championship.”
Tillman likes to see that men-
tality in his players, but he admit-
ted: “As an older guy, there are a
lot of things I think are really
important to our program, reallyimportant to our school. To be
able to represent our school and
win a Big Ten championship
means a lot. Lacrosse means so
much in this area, and we have so
much great tradition here and so
many people that care so much.”
Rutgers, the No. 4 team in the
country, is 13-1 against all the
teams on its schedule not named
Maryland, b ut the Scarlet Knights
have lost two lopsided matchups
against the Terps — first a 17-9
defeat in April and then this let-
down in their first Big Ten title
game appearance since 20 16.
Maryland controlled the game
from the start, with Wisnauskas
scoring his first of four goals
39 seconds in. And once Rutgers
leveled the game at 2 after six
minutes of play, t he Terps generat-
ed six straight goals while their
defense stifled the Scarlet
Knights. Wisnauskas’s first-half
hat trick lifted Maryland to a 8-2
edge at t he break.Rutgers, which e ntered averag-
ing 15.2 goals, couldn’t keep pace
and went 24 minutes without
scoring before halftime offered
some reprieve.
The Scarlet Knights had no of-
fensive answers until Ryan Gal-
lagher scored with 10:48 remain-
ing in the third quarter. Rutgers
still faced a five-goal deficit, and
then the Terps scored twice in the
two minutes that followed, e nsur-
ing their control would not waver.
Maryland never let up. The Terps
scored three times in the final
2:09 of the third quarter, and they
added four goals in the fourth.
Fifth-year midfielder Anthony
DeMaio hadn’t scored more than
two goals in a game all season, but
he notched three in the Big Ten
semifinal win against Johns Hop-
kins and then matched Wisnaus-
kas with four goals Saturday.
“What’s been great about An-
thony is he’s scored a lot of differ-
ent ways and shooting a lot ofBIG TEN MEN’S LACROSSE FINAL
Terrapins stay perfect with rout of Scarlet Knights
MARYLAND 17,
RUTGERS 7BY HAYLEY SALVATOREWhen her alarm went off at
5:30 a.m. one Saturday in March,
Madison Smith groggily got into
her bathing suit and hopped in
the car with her parents to head to
her championship swim meet.
The Good Counsel freshman aid-
ed the Falcons in placing first in
their heat in the relay event.
The following Monday, Smith,
whose “main sport” is golf and
who has been playing since she
was 7, tried out for the golf team
and made varsity. S he became the
youngest player on the team and
one of just two girls to try out.
More good news preceded that:
Smith had completed the last of
her chemotherapy treatments
just days before those athletic
accomplishments.
Smith will compete with the
Falcons at t he Washington Catho-
lic Athletic Conference champi-
onship Monday at N orthwest Golf
Course in Silver Spring. Sports —
and the community at her school
— have boosted Smith’s outlook
during otherwise difficult cir-
cumstances, and she has contin-
ued to thrive even though health
issues added a degree of difficulty.
During a trip to Maui in Au-
gust, Madison started experienc-
ing extreme stomach pain and
nausea. While she was initially
diagnosed as being infected with
E. coli and Salmonella — bacteria
consistent with food poisoning —
her symptoms persisted after she
took medication, prompting her
mother to suspect worse. Doctors
performed an X-ray, f ound a stric-
ture — a narrowing of the intesti-
nal tract — and airlifted her to a
hospital in Honolulu that was
equipped to perform surgery.
When pediatric surgeon Sid-
ney Johnson was finished, he
pulled Molly and James Smith out
of the recovery room to discuss
the results. In the hospital’s cha-
pel, Johnson told them he had
removed 23 swollen lymph nodes
and a foot of Madison’s colon and
that a biopsy came back positive
for both celiac disease and cancer.
Molly and James were stunned to
learn about their otherwise
healthy daughter’s diagnosis.
“We had not even been contem-
plating that because she’s so
young and it’s so rare for her age
group,” James said. “It just
doesn’t happen, so we weren’t
prepared for that.”
Back home in Rockville, Madi-
son was formally diagnosed with
Stage 3 colorectal cancer by on-
cologist AeRang Kim at Chil-
dren’s National Hospital. Accord-
ing to the National Cancer Insti-
tute, fewer than 100 children in
the United States are diagnosed
with colorectal cancer each year.
“She hit literally a home run,”
James said. “It was E. coli, Salmo-
nella, Celiac and cancer.”
Starting chemo on Sept. 14, just
two weeks after her first day of
high school, Madison didn’t k now
what to expect. She would have tomiss four days every other week
for chemotherapy treatments,
and she would have to navigate
the usual stresses of starting at a
new school.
Through a port that had been
surgically implanted in her body,
Madison received medicine for
46 hours that would leave her
nauseous and fatigued for the
next few days. She was able to do
most of her treatments at home
and recover on her living roomcouch cuddled up with her pan-
demic puppy, Wrigley.
“Friday was always a tough day
after she was disconnected from
her chemotherapy, and she would
just work really, really hard on
Saturday and Sunday to feel bet-
ter to get back to be able to go to
school on Monday,” James said.
On weeks when she didn’t h ave
chemotherapy treatments, she
would swim for Good Counsel.
Kate Walsh, Good Counsel’s a s-sistant principal, was especially
invested in Madison’s s uccess; the
families have been neighbors and
close friends for many years.
When Madison completed her
12 th and final round of chemo-
therapy March 11, Walsh sent out
an email to all of the teachers at
Good Counsel with the news that
Madison had beaten her cancer
and had not lost her hair. In the
message email were pictures of
Madison ringing the victory bell,indicating the end of her treat-
ment.
Madison became interested in
attending Good Counsel after tak-
ing lessons from the Falcons’ for-
mer golf coach, Jim Estes. “He
would always like chirp in my e ar,
like, ‘I have a golf team,’ and then I
just, I liked the idea,” Madison
said. While Estes is no longer with
the program, Madison has
thrived under new coach Dan
Booth and assistant Casey Col-
lins.
Over the course of the season,
she has amassed 8.5 points in
match play. Her favorite match
was her first varsity outing with
the team against Paul VI. Al-
though the Falcons lost, 6.5-2.5,
Madison, who was up against a
junior boy, won her duel.
“We were tied through the
ninth hole, and he was sweating,
he was getting nervous and he
was like, ‘This is not supposed to
happen,’ ” said Madison, whose
long-term goal is to play golf at
the collegiate level. “I like playing
against boys because they don’t
expect it from a little girl.”
This summer, Smith will play
in her fifth Drive, Chip & Putt
tournament after taking two
years off (one was canceled be-
cause of the coronavirus pandem-
ic, and she missed the other be-
cause she was in Hawaii). The
tournament takes place annually
at t he University of Maryland golf
course, with the top three golfers
in each city moving onto the
sectional round. Smith placed
fourth two years ago, crushing
her hopes of making it to the final
championship and playing at Au-
gusta National in Georgia.
Playing at the home of the
Masters has always been a goal of
Madison’s, so much so that when
she was asked what she wanted to
do as part of the Make-A-Wish
foundation, her answer was easy
— to play Augusta National and
spend a few nights in the Crow’s
Nest, where amateur golfers stay
during the Masters.
“If you could say, ‘Yeah I got to
play Augusta when I was 14,’ peo-
ple would be like, ‘Huh?’ ” Madi-
son said.
That wish has not yet been
granted, but Madison is confident
that she will reach her chosen
destination at s ome point, wheth-
er it’s through the Drive, Chip &
Putt competition or Make-A-
Wish.
“She’s convinced she’s going to
get to Augusta,” James said, “one
way or another.”After beating cancer, golfer has her eyes on the WCACFreshman became the youngest player on Good Counsel’s varsity team — after she completed 12 rounds of chemotherapyDOUG KAPUSTIN FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
“I like playing against boys because they don’t expect it from a little girl,” said Madison Smith, who hopes to play golf at the collegiate level.