Maryland women’s lacrosse overcomes starting goalie’s absence, routs Robert Morris, 17-1, in NCAA Tournament

COLLEGE PARK — Maryland women’s lacrosse got an early glimpse of life without Emily Sterling. Whether the team will continue its run in the NCAA Tournament without its standout goalkeeper remains to be seen.

In the first start of her college career, Julia Hammerschlag made a personal-best eight saves, and eight different players found the net to propel the No. 4 seed Terps to a 17-1 thrashing of visiting Robert Morris in a first-round game Friday afternoon at the Field Hockey & Lacrosse Complex.

The 16-goal difference marked Maryland’s most lopsided NCAA Tournament win since a 20-4 pummeling of Colgate in a first-round matchup on May 10, 2009. The one goal allowed was the fewest surrendered in the tournament since a 6-1 victory over New Hampshire in a quarterfinal on May 9, 1980.

Making their 34th consecutive appearance in the NCAA postseason, the Terps (13-5) triumphed in their ninth straight first-round match and have never lost in the opening round under coach Cathy Reese. They will face either Penn State (11-7) or James Madison (13-5) in Sunday’s second-round game at 12:30 p.m.

Reese said Sterling, a graduate student who grew up in Bel Air and graduated from John Carroll, suffered an injury earlier in the season and was subsequently held out. Although Sterling started all 17 games prior to Friday, Reese described the situation as “just kind of day-to-day with her.”

Sterling, who ranks fifth among all NCAA Division I goalies in save percentage at .526 and led the Big Ten in saves per game at 9.8, has not played since a 9-8 loss to Rutgers in the quarterfinals of the conference tournament on April 27. Reese was noncommittal about whether Sterling would return after a 15-day layoff for Sunday’s game.

“I hope. We’ll see,” she said. “We’ll get out to practice tomorrow and see where we are. I don’t have an answer. I wish I had a better answer right now.”

If Maryland hopes to add to its NCAA-record stash of 15 national championships, it will likely need a healthy and effective Sterling. For at least one game, though, Hammerschlag proved more than capable of backstopping the defense.

Hammerschlag, a Baltimore resident and McDonogh graduate who transferred from Florida to the Terps after the 2022 season, faced only 13 shots and stopped all but one of nine on-net attempts. The only goal she surrendered was a free-position opportunity by Colonials junior midfielder Jenna Irwin 78 seconds into the second quarter that trimmed Maryland’s advantage to 5-1.

Robert Morris did not score another goal in the final 43:42. Sophomore midfielder Kori Edmondson said Hammerschlag provided a lift when she turned back a shot by Colonials sophomore defender Eliana LaMange just 44 seconds into the game.

“We were feeding off of the defense’s energy,” said Edmondson, a Severn resident and McDonogh graduate. “Julia was making great saves in there. So that just carried over to the offense.”

Hammerschlag got plenty of relief from an offense that scored all five goals of the first quarter and all seven of the third. A free-position goal by senior attacker Kate Sites gave Maryland an 11-1 advantage that initiated a running clock that Robert Morris couldn’t stop.

Sites, a Glenelg resident and Glenelg Country graduate, came off the bench to score a career-high four goals. Graduate student attacker Hannah Leubecker, a Forest Hill resident, and Edmondson tallied three goals each, and senior midfielder Shaylan Ahearn, a Woodbine resident and Glenelg Country graduate, racked up a game-best eight draw controls, one assist and one caused turnover.

Ahearn credited Hammerschlag with energizing the offense.

“Personally, I thought she was the person who ignited that,” Ahearn said. “She came out and made a huge stop right in the first minutes of the game. So I think she proved to herself and proved to everyone else that she does belong on that field in this moment. She did her job and when she did that, we all kind of got together and almost settled in a little bit and realized that if we just did our job and played hard, it was going to build upon itself and we could come out with a win.”

Junior goalkeeper Sydney Riker finished with a game-high eight saves for Robert Morris (8-12), which made only its second postseason appearance. Irwin’s goal marked the program’s first goal in its NCAA Tournament history after getting shut out by Notre Dame, 16-0, on May 14, 2021.

Graduate student attacker Julia Koterwas, a Hagerstown resident, said she didn’t notice much of a difference between the Terps’ goalie rotation of Sterling and Hammerschlag.

“She was definitely a tough goalie,” Koterwas said of Hammerschlag. “We had a couple shots, which I think was our goal, but I think shot placement could have really helped us as the game went on. She was fantastic, especially coming in for her first game. So good for her.”