Junior Owen Blye had a career high four goals and six points to lead the No. 8 Maryland men's lacrosse team to a 11-5 win over Villanova Saturday afternoon at Capital One Field at Byrd Stadium.
The victory lifts the Terps to 5-1 on the season, while the Wildcats fall to 4-3.
Maryland came out strong with junior Billy Gribbin scoring the first of his two goals of the day. The first came at 12:55 when senior Joe Cummings rolled around the backside of the cage and found Gribbin wide open on the crease with a picture-perfect pass.
Gribbin's second goal came at 11:24 on a shot created by a dodge from behind the cage.
The Terps added to their lead at 9:42 with Blye scoring his first of the day on a rocket into the upper right corner of the net.
Blye, a native of Downingtown, Pa., a suburb of Philadelphia, continued the scoring barrage at 5:37. A shot by Blye going across the crease went wide of the net, but freshman Jay Carlson backed-up the play and used a quick restart to find Blye open on the crease where he beat Nova goalie Dan Gutierrez in close.
Redshirt sophomore Mike Chanenchuk extended the lead to 5-0 with a goal at the 3:32 mark of the first. Chanenchuk finished a shot from the left alley off of a pass from junior John Haus.
Junior Curtis Holmes won the ensuing faceoff and advanced the ball to Blye, who then fed a cross-crease pass to Carlson who finished with an easy shot to increase the lead to 6-0.
Maryland extended their run to 7-0 to start the second quarter with senior Michael Shakespeare scoring his first of two goals on the day. Junior Kevin Cooper found Shakespeare with a pass to the left alley and Shakespeare finished a bounce shot for the goal.
Villanova finally got on the board after a 19:50 scoring drought with a extra-man tally by C.J. Small. The Wildcats then scored again less than a minute later to make it a 7-2 game, but Maryland finished the half with a man-up goal of its own by Haus, who scored off of a feed to the crease by senior Drew Snider to make it a 8-2 at the half.
Maryland opened up the lead to seven goals at the 9:12 mark of the third when Shakespeare scored his second on another long bouncer off an assist from Blye.
The Wildcats closed the gap to 9-4 with two goals midway through the third quarter, but the Terps answered when Blye completed his hat trick at the 4:59 mark. The man-up goal came off of another assist from Snider.
The game slowed down in the final quarter with each team only scoring one goal apiece. Blye finished the scoring for the Terps, adding his forth at the 3:04 mark. A sloppy turnover by the Wildcats ended up with junior Jesse Bernhardt racing down the middle of the field. He found Blye on the right side where he beat Gutierrez.
Villanova's Nick Doherty finished the scoring with an unassisted goal with 1:30 to play.
Sophomore Niko Amato, a native of Conshohocken, Pa., finished the day with 12 saves in the net to improve to 5-1 on the season. In front of Amato, the Maryland defense forced the Wildcats into 16 turnovers for the game. Maryland also won the ground ball battle, finishing the day with a 35-22 edge.
Bernhardt led the Terps with six groundballs and three caused turnovers, while Amato also finished with six groundballs.
Maryland moves back into conference play when it travels to Chapel Hill, N.C., to take on No. 12 North Carolina on Saturday, March 24 at noon at Fetzer Field. That game will be televised nationally on ESPNU.