D6 EZ M2 THE WASHINGTON POST.MONDAY, MAY 23 , 2022
BY KYLE MELNICKWhile watching almost every
game her older sister, Ellie,
played for the St. John’s girls’
lacrosse team in the late 2010s,
Stella Shea memorized each play-
er’s number and college commit-
ment. She loved the program,
even as Shea watched more loss-
es than wins while the Cadets
struggled to develop into a con-
tender.
Still, Shea witnessed improve-
ment over her sister’s four-year
tenure, so when she joined the
program in fall 2019, Shea be-
lieved the Cadets could claim
their first championship before
she graduated.
On Sunday afternoon, the ju-
nior midfielder scored five goals
in the inaugural D.C. State Ath-
letic Association title game.
Those goals set up midfielder
Lauren Archer’s game-winner
with eight seconds left in the
Cadets’ 14-13 win over George-
town Visitation at Catholic Uni-
versity.
“We really turned people’s
heads today — we made history,”
Shea said. “I always love being
the underdog. It’s the best way to
prove yourself and make your
name known.”
Shea arrived at St. John’s (14-6)
around the same time as Coach
Mindy Urick after the Northwest
Washington program suffered
another losing season. Because of
the coronavirus pandemic, the
Cadets didn’t settle into a rhythm
until this past fall when condi-
tioning began.
St. John’s announced itself as a
Washington Catholic Athletic
Conference competitor April 12,
when it beat perennial contender
Bishop Ireton for the first time.
The Cadets fell to the Cardinals in
the WCAC semifinals May 6, and
players thought of those late-
game struggles Sunday, when
Visitation (16-6) claimed a 11-9
lead with roughly 11 minutes
remaining.
Trying to relax her players,
Urick said on the sideline: “Enjoy
the breeze. This is fun. Isn’t it
fun?”
St. John’s evened the score at 11
about 90 seconds later, and after
the teams traded goals, the Ca-
dets collected the draw with
57 seconds remaining. Archer
dodged a pair of defenders and
scored, leaving Visitation coach-
es pleading for an offensive foul.
“I knew even if I did go, one of
my teammates would be cutting,
so I just took it,” said Archer, a
junior committed to Northwest-
ern. “That’s one you probably
think of your whole life. It was
just awesome that I had the right
chance.”
After St. John’s claimed its first
victory over the Cubs, a perennial
Independent School League con-
tender, players posed for photos
with the program’s first champi-
onship banner and Urick re-
ceived her first Gatorade shower.
“The sky is the limit for
St. John’s,” said midfielder Meryl
Docking, who had a hat trick
Sunday. “I know the passion of
the coaches and the facilities and
the managers. We have every-
thing we need.”St. Albans boys triumph
In the boys’ championship
game, St. Albans cruised by
Sidwell Friends, 17-4, at Catholic
University.
Holding a 6-2 halftime lead
over the Quakers (9-10), the Bull-
dogs (14-9) scored six third-quar-
ter goals. St. Albans attackmen
Bob Gross and James DiOrio each
contributed four goals.DCSAA LACROSSE FINALS
Victory makes it o∞cial:
Cadets girls have arrived
ST. JOHN’S 14,
G’TOWN VISITATION 13have trailed in and the first since
an April 16 defeat of Ohio State.
That situation was rectified quick-
ly. Maryland led 4-1 after a quarter
and 9-4 by halftime.
By the middle of the third quar-
ter, it was clear Maryland would
collect another victory. But the
Terps aren’t ready to savor any-
thing — not yet.
“Last year is last year, and that’s
all in the past,” Zappitello said.
“We’re just focused on the present
right now, just keeping our heads
on. We all have one end goal, and
we just have to finish the job.”
In Sunday’s other quarterfinal,
seventh-seeded Cornell improved
to 13-4 with a 10-8 victory over
unseeded Delaware (13-6). Cornell
will face sixth-seeded Rutgers in
the Final Four on Saturday.illusions as to why.
He delved into a conversation
that became common as this sea-
son progressed: Where will Mary-
land rank among the all-time
great teams if it completes a per-
fect season? Tiffany mentioned
1990 Syracuse, which featured
Gary and Paul Gait as seniors, and
2006 Virginia, which went 17-0
and remains the sport’s last unde-
feated champion.
With two more victories, Mary-
land could join that group.
“I think the Maryland Terrapins... belong in that upper, upper
echelon,” Tiffany said. “There just
isn’t a weakness.”
About the only thing that went
poorly for the Terps on Sunday
was the 1-0 deficit they faced. It
was only the fourth game they
assist in his final college game
while marked by Brett Makar, and
Payton Cormier scored twice (but
on only three shots). But the
crowning defensive feat was the
work Ajax Zappitello did on Con-
nor Shellenberger, a Tewaaraton
Award finalist and the most out-
standing player of last year’s tour-
nament.
This time, the redshirt sopho-
more was held scoreless on five
shots, with Zappitello attached to
him throughout. It was the first
time in 34 career college games
that Shellenberger was held with-
out a point.
And with that, the Cavaliers’
lengthy run as champions — with
two titles sandwiched around the
short-circuited pandemic season
— is over. Tiffany was under nogame.
Jeff Conner had three goals and
an assist for the unseeded Cava-
liers (12-4), who had won their
previous five NCAA tournament
games against the Terps.
“We recognize that last year’s
national championship game was
the impetus for Maryland to take
their team to the next level,” Vir-
ginia Coach Lars Tiffany said.
“Now it’s our turn. Watch this
team. Study this team. Learn from
this, so we come back in 2023 at a
different level.”
Maryland obviously didn’t
want to replicate its previous two
postseason games against Vir-
ginia, one-goal losses in the 2019
quarterfinals and last year’s title
game. Instead, the Terps largely
succeeded in making Sunday a
carbon copy of their 23-12 rout of
the Cavaliers on March 19 at Audi
Field.
Everything Maryland did that
afternoon, it repeated Sunday. The
Terps dominated possession
thanks to Luke Wierman, who
won 20 of 29 faceoffs while largely
contending with Virginia’s Petey
LaSalla. They never let the Cava-
liers get on a run; Virginia’s only
back-to-back goals came after
Maryland had built a 15-5 lead.
Then there were the unsettled
goals, including a pair involving
defensive midfielder Roman Pug-
lise exploiting a weakness in the
substitution game. In the first half,
he faked running off, then assisted
on a Jonathan Donville goal. In the
second, Puglise did the same thing
and deposited a goal of his own.
“What Roman did was more
Roman being a veteran guy be-
cause he was involved in a couple
of those,” Tillman said. “I think
that was Roman being crafty and
experienced.”
As much as Maryland peppered
goalie Matthew Nunes (11 saves)
and the rest of the Virginia de-
fense, the Terps also locked down
the Cavaliers’ top offensive play-
ers.
Matt Moore had a goal and anMARYLAND FROM D1Terps defeat Cavaliers to advance to the Final FourMARYLAND ATHLETICS
Jonathan Donville (3) had two goals and an assist for Maryland, which will face Princeton on Saturday.BY DAVE SHEININFor eight years, Katie Ledecky
was the world record holder in
the three longest women’s free-
style swimming distances, with
those marks getting lowered
11 times in that stretch — each
time by Ledecky herself.
As of Sunday, that is no longer
the case. Australian Ariarne Tit-
mus, who emerged as Ledecky’s
top rival during the previous
Olympic quadrennial and beat
the American twice at the Tokyo
Games, took down Ledecky’s rec-
ord in the 400 meters during the
Australian swimming champion-
ships in Adelaide.
Titmus, 21, finished in 3 min-
utes 56.40 seconds during Sun-
day night’s final, shaving six-hundredths of a second off
Ledecky’s standard of 3:56.46,
set at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro
Olympics.
Titmus flirted with the world
record at the 2021 Australian
Olympic trials (3:56.90) and at
the finals of the Tokyo Olympics
(3:56.69) — the latter of which
dealt Ledecky, the silver medal-
ist, her first defeat at an interna-
tional meet in one of her core
events. Titmus also beat Ledecky
for gold in the 200 meters in
Tokyo; Ledecky earned a meas-
ure of revenge by besting Titmus
in the 800 and added a second
gold in the 1,500, which Titmus
did not swim. They were the
sixth and seventh Olympic golds
of her career.
“It’s kind of nice now that I’mnot going to be asked when I am
going to break the world record,”
Titmus told reporters Sunday. “I
am the happiest I have ever been
outside of swimming. I am the
happiest I have ever been in my
life in swimming. It’s definitely
showing in the pool.”
Ledecky, 25, still owns the
world records at the longest
freestyle distances: 8:04.79 in the
800 at Rio 2016 and 15:20.48 in
the 1,500 at the 2018 TYR Pro
Swim Series meet in Indianapo-
lis. In the 400, she broke Federica
Pellegrini’s five-year-old world
record of 3:59.15 in 2014, then
lowered it two more times, most
recently at Rio 2016.
As she did in Tokyo, Titmus
spoke glowingly Sunday of
Ledecky’s legacy and influence,telling reporters: “I can’t put
myself up next to her. What she
has done for female swimming
has been insane. She has been at
this level for 10 years. To be in the
conversation with her — I feel
completely honored. And I hope
now this will keep the battle
going and give her some drive.”
A rematch was set to occur at
the world championships next
month in Budapest, but Titmus
earlier announced she would
skip the worlds and instead com-
pete in the Commonwealth
Games starting in late July.
That means Ledecky and Tit-
mus are unlikely to meet again
until the 2023 world champion-
ships in Fukuoka, Japan — one
year before the 2024 Paris Olym-
pics.Titmus breaks Ledecky’s record in 400 freestyle“I liked the way we battled in
those two games in Carolina,”
Gallant said. “We felt like we were
going to win the hockey game.
Our goalie was outstanding in the
first half of the game and made
some big key saves for us. I
thought we played well enough to
win.”
Nino Niederreiter scored for
the Hurricanes, and Antti Raanta
finished with 30 saves. Carolina,
6-0 at home, dropped to 0-4 on
the road this postseason.
l OILERS 4, FLAMES 1:
Evander Kane had three goals in a
six-minute span in the second
period, Leon Draisaitl set an NHL
record with four assists in one
playoff period, and host E dmon-
ton beat Calgary to take a 2-1 lead
in their second-round s eries.
Zach Hyman had the other
goal for the Oilers, and Connor
McDavid had three more assists.
Mike Smith, who was briefly re-
placed by Mikko Koskinen in the
third period after getting run
over by Milan Lucic, made
31 saves. Koskinen wasn’t forced
to make a stop in just over four
minutes.
Oliver Kylington scored the
lone goal for the Flames.Giordano staying with Leafs
The Toronto Maple Leafs
signed veteran defenseman Mark
Giordano to a two-year contract
extension. The average annual
value of the deal is $800,000.
Giordano, 38, had eight goals
and 27 assists in 75 games last
season split between Toronto and
the Seattle Kraken. He added two
assists in seven playoff games
with the Maple Leafs.im coach Andrew Brunette said.
“We fall behind, they’re a tough
team to come back on. We kind of
fell behind here this whole series,
and we haven’t found that extra
gear from behind, which we
found all year. But you have to
play one game to bring it home
and keep it alive.”
l RANGERS 3, HURRI-
CANES 1: M ika Zibanejad had a
goal and an assist and Igor
Shesterkin stopped 43 shots as
New York beat visiting Carolina
in Game 3 of their second-round
series to cut its deficit to 2-1.
“It was a tight battle again,”
Rangers Coach Gerard Gallant
said. “Igor was outstanding for
us, and that was they key.... We
defended pretty good, and guys
did the right thing with the puck.”
Chris Kreider and Tyler Motte
also scored for the Rangers, who
host Game 4 on Tuesday night at
Madison Square Garden.
“It’s a terrific environment...
so much energy throughout the
entire game,” Kreider said. “It’s
easy to feed off the energy the
crowd brings.”
It was just New York’s second
win against Carolina in their past
10 meetings, dating from the
qualifying round of the 2020
playoffs in the bubble in Toronto.
The Hurricanes swept that best-
of-five series and won three of
four in the regular season.
The Rangers, who came back
from a 3-1 series deficit in the first
round against the Pittsburgh Pen-
guins, improved to 4-1 at home.
They got a much-needed win
against the Hurricanes after los-
ing, 2-1, in overtime in Game 1
and, 2-0, in Game 2.making some saves.... T hey’re a
good team. You can see why they
won two Stanley Cups.”
Sam Reinhart scored Florida’s
lone goal, snapping a 0 -for-25
start to the playoffs for the Pan-
thers’ power play. Sergei Bo-
brovsky stopped 31 of 34 shots.
“ Not a lot of puck luck, and lots
of credit to them,” Panthers inter-Vasilevskiy, meanwhile, al-
lowed just one goal for the fourth
straight game after allowing at
least three in each of Tampa Bay’s
first six games this postseason.
“We’re down 3-0, so obviously
we’re not happy with the results,”
Panthers star Jonathan Hu-
berdeau said. “But we’re playing
probably the best goalie. He’sJon Cooper s aid. “Until you start
checking off that fourth win,
there’s nothing we can sit and
hang our hat on. We’re inching
our way closer, but this is far from
over.”
Corey Perry got the Lightning
off to a strong start with his
50th career playoff goal, and Erik
Cernak also scored.ASSOCIATED PRESSA ndrei Vasilevskiy is a not-so-
secret key ingredient in the Tam-
pa Bay Lightning’s recipe for suc-
cess in the playoffs.
The reigning Conn Smythe
Trophy recipient won his fifth
straight postseason game Sunday
in Tampa, stopping 34 of 35 shots
to help the two-time defending
Stanley Cup champions beat the
Florida Panthers, 5-1, and move to
the verge of another trip to the
Eastern Conference finals.
“It all starts with him,” forward
Nick Paul said after Vasilevskiy
stood tall again in shutting down
the high-scoring Panthers, who
had the NHL’s best record while
averaging a league-high four
goals a game during the regular
season.
The Presidents’ Trophy win-
ners have three goals in three
games against the Lightning,
which has a commanding 3-0
series lead and is within one
victory of advancing to the con-
ference finals for the sixth time in
eight years.
Steven Stamkos scored two
goals and Nikita Kucherov had a
goal and three assists for the
Lightning.
Game 4 is Monday night at
Amalie Arena, where Tampa Bay
has won three of four this post-
season.
“We’re pleased with what’s go-
ing on here. But you know, we
haven’t done anything yet,” Coach
NHL ROUNDUP
Vasilevskiy puts Presidents’ Trophy winners on the brink
LIGHTNING 5,
PANTHERS 1CHRIS O'MEARA/ASSOCIATED PRESS
For the third game in a row, the Lightning’s Andrei Vasilevskiy held the potent Panthers to one goal.BRENTON EDWARDS/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGESAustralia’s Ariarne Titmus finished the 400-meter freestyle in 3
minutes 56.40 seconds at her country’s championships in Adelaide.