Failing With Chopsticks - Winston Salem Wacky

By: Andy Gripshover

It's 11:39 PM on Christmas Eve as I type this. In just over 12 hours, it's national championship time. I'm a total ball of nerves right now. So how do we unwind? Relive all the wild and crazy stuff Brian and I got ourselves in to on this trip!

-We left College Park on Wednesday afternoon at about 3:45. We rolled in to our Marriott hotel here in Winston Salem at about 11:45. That's EIGHT HOURS, folks. Boy, did it drag. To be fair, part of it was spent eating dinner at Uno (excellent pizza, fantastic chocolate cake which the picture tells you I enjoyed, absolutely epic and unprintable dinnertime conversation) but a big shout out goes to my friends Mike and Olaolu for texting with me for much of the trip. Unfortunately I won't have that luxury on the trip home but I'll hopefully have a national championship game story to work on. And some celebrating to do. Hopefully.

-Thursday lunch was at Dill Pickle, a very nice little lunch place where I got a fried chicken sandwich, some chips, and an epic cookies and cream slice of cake. It didn't fill me up enough however and I had a massive headache almost all day which prevented too much happy fun times. It was cured by night though and I got to see FlashForward as it aired, which is rare for me because I usually have a Thursday night class. Show was awesome, as usual. Unfortunately, I missed an absolutely epic banquet for the Final Four teams because there was only one ticket and Brian got up earlier than me to claim it (there had better be video of Emma Thomas from this particular evening.) Ah well. I dragged him to Mellow Mushroom though, where I threw down an 11 inch meatlovers pizza. Yes, I ate pizza for dinner two nights in a row. Nice healthy diet I have going on.

-Friday was game day. Silly me nearly made us late and got us mock applause from Missy and Marybeth for being the last ones on the bus. Gotta step my game up tomorrow. You know about the game by now (hopefully) so I won't go in to that. Instead we need to discuss Friday's lunch before the game, which inspired the title.

-Prior to this trip, I only knew "Pho" from Moses Malone's "fo, fo, fo" Sixers in the early 80's. Not anymore. "Pho" is the Vietnamese soup place where I learned to use chopsticks after, well, failing miserably. A little backstory: I am from Carroll County, which is about 40 minutes west of Baltimore and basically lily white. "Pho", to be quite frank, was culture shock. I went in scoffing at $10 for soup...and then I saw the size of the bowl of soup that we got. Holy goodness. It was solid and I can only imagine how epic it would've been if I were sick. And then of course there was the chopsticks. I first used them by holding one in each hand and like converging them together to literally "pick up" the noodles which...did not go well. Then I just followed Brian's lead, which worked a little better. It took me a while to pick up though and I think that in part almost made us late as you read above. I was just on fire on Friday as you can tell.

-Friday dinner was basically Chik-Fil-A that we copped from the media room when we came back with the team for the second half of UVA/UNC. Dressed in jeans and a long sleeve fleece blue shirt with a media pass around my neck, I threw down Chik-Fil-A, a bag of Fritos, a soda, and like four Rice Krispy Treats (not counting the two I had before the press conference after the Maryland game.) Basically, I was the walking stereotype of the lazy sports journalist. That combined with the "Fo" paux from earlier and nearly making us late...my family must be so proud. They'll also be proud of the following.

-Friday night was spent exploring around downtown Winston Salem (no, not an oxymoron, to the disbelief of both Brian and I.) The highlight: we found a place with a pink neon sign that read "GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS" with an arrow. It was called "Harper's Cabaret" and it was like two blocks down from our hotel. Also, it was sandwiched between two dark alleys. We weren't trying to die. We exited stage left very quickly. We ended up getting some snacks from a place called "Kernal and Kustard." I got a hot fudge sundae with caramel and rainbow sprinkles to keep up my ungodly diet, Brian got a North Carolina hot dog that had chili, cheese, hot sauce, coleslaw, relish, and mustard on it.

-Oh and we also discovered that the local CVS closes at 6 PM every night. Winston Salem night life, everybody!

-Went to practice this morning and met the CBS College Sports (which I call CBSCSTV since it used to be CSTV and "CBS College Sports" takes too long to say) broadcasters, who were very nice and very in awe of the Terps. With good reason. Can't tell you too much of what we saw at practice; that's what our broadcast tomorrow is for :) After practice, we came back here and got some lunch at a place called Namo (I guess you could say...*puts on sunglasses a la Caurso from CSI: Miami*...we were finding Namo. YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.) I got an absolutely unreal fried chicken sandwich that was so big that, combined with my fries, basically put me out of commission for the afternoon. BK's pizza also knocked him out as he took a nap for most of the afternoon. Too bad for him, he missed Charlie Weis almost surely losing his job as UConn beat Notre Dame in double overtime. We both saw that crazy LSU/Ole Miss finish though where the Tigers couldn't get the final play off after converting the 4th and 26. Ahh, college football is awesome. Then we prepped, talked with Missy, and went out to dinner (Mellow Mushroom again; I got a chicken parm hoagie, BK got a take home pizza.) Got home in time for the epic Oregon/Arizona finish (again, college football = good) and now I'm writing this.

-And to wrap up: Just now, BK notices that Katie O'Donnell is the "Terp of the Week" on our website (www.wmucsports.com) Without missing a beat, I respond with "shouldn't she be like the Terp of Our Lives?" Kind of sums up the weekend. Hopefully. Go Terps! Bring the 'ship home tomorrow. Take care, everyone.

Terps Beat Princeton in Winston-Salem Shootout 7-5, Advance to Title Game

Missed the game? Listen to a replay of the first half here and listen to the second half here. Listen to HIGHLIGHTS here

By Brian Kapur

“We are up for the challenge,” that’s the Terps have expressed all season and on Friday, Princeton provided a challenge, and the Terps rose to the occasion and won 7-5 to advance to the national championship game.

Princeton scored the first goal of the game, but the Terps answered back with three unanswered goals. The Terps surged ahead of the Tigers 3-1 in the first half on the strength of two Emma Thomas drag shots and a goal by Katie O’Donnell, going into the locker room with a two goal lead.

After halftime, goal keeper Alicia Grater took on two Tigers and made two saves with no defensive help. The Terps took the ball immediately down the field and Nicole Muracco fed O’Donnell the ball and the ACC Offensive Player of the Year did the rest by scoring the goal to blow the game open 4-1.

“The transition today was really what put us above them. From playing defense to automatic attack,” O’Donnell said.

But the Tigers would not back down. Princeton scored three goals to tie the game at four with about 17 minutes to go in the game.

“We settled a bit and they were not going to be embarrassed, there was no way that team was going to get blown out,” coach Missy Meharg said. “They have a vengeance mentally, they are strong players. I am not surprised that it happened. I would have liked to control it a little bit more.”

“When it was a tied score and the pressure was really on to perform again and finish, we have players that like that challenge,” Meharg said.

The Terps answered the challenge as freshman Megan Frazer scored the go-ahead goal with a rocket shot. Then O’Donnell put a perfect pass on Ameliet Rischen’s stick. Rischen did the rest as she put the Terps up two goals.

O’Donnell put the final touches on the Terps win with a knockout punch goal, and her NCAA tournament signal game record ninth point, to secure a date with North Carolina for the national championship.

“It’s my teammates...It’s not about me or my points. It’s about my (teammates) finishing them," O'Donnell said. "I can only do what I can do. I can put the ball in the net as much as I like to. But the assists don’t just come, it’s your teammates putting the ball in the net for you. Its great to have nine points, but I am just a single player on an entire field of a huge group of girls.”

The Terps will play the Tar Heels on Sunday at noon looking to repeat as national champions.

“For me this year is more important," O'Donnell said. "You have been through the process, you know what its like to win a national championship and you drive to win another one. Its definety not taken for granted. Nothing is taken for granted.

Terps set to take on Princeton in final four

by Brian Kapur

The Terps will take on Princeton, the first team to survive 70 minutes of field hockey with the Terps and push them into overtime.

Meanwhile ACC rivals UNC and UVA will battle to face the winner in Sunday's national championship game.

Terps Route Drexel Enroute to Winston-Salem, Final Four

By Brian Kapur

In the second round of the NCAA Tournament, the Terps sent a message to the field hockey world with a 5-0 drubbing of Drexel.

From goalkeeper Alicia Grater at one end of the field to the Terps' all-time leading scorer Nicole Muracco on the other end of the field, the Terps were firing on all cylinders as they shut out the Dragons.

Muracco got the scoring started by challenging the Dragons' goalkeeper and getting the ball through after battling with her. Muracco struck again moments later on an assist from Ameliet Rischen to give the Terps a 2-0 lead at half.

Katie O'Donnell, Janessa Pope and Megan Frazer each had a goal in the second half to balloon the score to 5-0.

Alicia Morowski did not play due to an injury sustained against American.

Drexel made 16 saves on 33 Maryland shots. Meanwhile the Dragons could only take three shots, all of which happened in the second half and one was saved by Grater.

Terps to play Drexel

Drexel upset UConn to advance to Sunday's game against the Terps. Game time is 2pm. Listen live on WMUCSports.com

Terps advance, race past American 6-1

By Brian Kapur

All week long the Terps had great practice sessions, coach Missy Meharg and the players talked about taking their game to another level for the post season.

Against the American Eagles on Saturday, the Terps did just that as they lit up the stingy Eagle defense and won 6-1 enroute to the second round of the NCAA tournament.

"We are so pleased to be moving on in the tournament," Meharg said.

The Terps scored on three of five penalty corner attempts, showing new looks, while also executing on their go-to-play, the Emma Thomas drag shot.

"Our execution with our penalty corners was right on," Meharg said.

Meghan Frazer started the scoring just under eight minutes in on a penalty corner strike to give the Terps a 1-0 lead. Moments later, Thomas nailed a drag shot to put the Terps up 2-0.

The Terps offensive barrage continued as Katie O'Donnell scored the Terps' third goal just under 24 minutes into the game.

As the first half came to a close, the Eagles took their first shot on a penalty corner and scored to cut into the Terps lead 3-1.

But they would never come any closer.

"At halftime we got recomposed and we came out and stepped it up." Bri Davies said.

Nicole Muracco scored a goal off an assist from O'Donnell. Then later in the final stanza, O'Donnell put the finishing touches on the Terps dominating performance by using fantastic stick work to fake the American goal keeper out, making her dive the wrong way, and scoring the final goal to give the Terps a 6-1 win.

Muracco and O'Donnell tied the ACC and Maryland single season goal scored and assist records respectivly.

Field Hockey Bracketology

by Brian Kapur

The Terps are riding a wave of momentum after a comeback for the ages in the ACC Championship game. The momentum continued during the NCAA selection show when the Terps potential road to back-to-back NCAA championships was paved.

-A road paved perfectly for the Terps
>The Terps will be playing the first two rounds at home, a perk which may have been in doubt.
>The Terps are the top overall seed
>UVA, UNC, and Wake Forest are on the opposite side of the bracket. Great news meaning the Terps will only have to face one of them on the road to the championship. And that would be in the title game itself.
> The Terps would only face one of two tough teams on their side of the bracket Princeton and Syracuse. They still have UConn to deal with and the always tough American.

There is little to dislike about the way this bracket shaped up for the Terps.

TWICE AS NICE: Terps rally to win ACC title in OT

By Brian Kapur

With 15 minutes to go in the ACC championship game the University of Virginia Cavaliers led 2-0, dominating play, had momentum in their favor and were in the driver seat to upset the Terps.

The Terps needed a play, a goal, a shot of energy- anything.

Enter ACC tournament MVP Katie O'Donnell

O'Donnell took the game into her hands- much like Michael Jordan did for the Chicago Bulls when they were winning NBA championships in the 1990s- and made the play that would turn the momentum and game in the Terps favor.

O'Donnell took the ball inside Virginia's 25 yard line and drove towards the right post. Then the eventual MVP wound up and cranked the ball into the goal from a low percentage angle to cut the UVA lead to 2-1 and bring the Terps new life.

“We’re the biggest group of fighters you might ever see,” O’Donnell said. “We’re not ranked No. 1 because we won last year. We’re No. 1 because we’ll put everything we have on the field, and we’re going to do everything we absolutely have to do to come out with a win.”

Under two minutes later, the Terps all-time leading goal scorer Nicole Muracco tied the game at two off a pass from Alexis Pappas.

At the end of regulation, with under a minute to play, both teams had a penalty corner chance. The Terps were unable to capitalize with 40 seconds to go. The Cavaliers had a penalty corner opporunity with no time left on the clock. The Terps needed one more defensive stand to send the game to overtime.

The Terps defense rose to the occasion. Senior goal keeper Alicia Grater made a fantastic save to send the game to overtime.

“I don’t think I’ve ever felt the energy just from five girls coming out of the cage,” back Emma Thomas said. “Nothing was going in the net that time.”

The Terps needed less than two minutes to get a penalty corner opportunity. With a chance to end the game, Emma Thomas took a shot, and Meghan Frazer hit a defelection in to give the Terps back-to-back ACC championships.

Terps outlast Wake Forest 3-2, advance to ACC title game

Missed the game? Listen to a replay here

By Brian Kapur

The Terps, usually a strong second half team, used a strong first half where they built a 2-0 lead and an early second half goal to stave off Wake Forest 3-2 as time expired.

ACC offensive player of the year Katie O'Donnell made a steal on defense just outside of the 25 yard line and fed the ball to All ACC team member Nicole Muracco who scored the first goal of the game with about 17 minutes elapsed.

About 10 minutes later the Terps drew a penalty corner and Emma Thomas scored on a drag shot to give the Terps a 2-0 advantage. Wake Forest would get a penalty corner and appeared to have an open shot but senior back Alicia Morawski made the play of the day by saving an open shot, which would come into play later in the game.

The Terps took their 2-0 lead into the locker room at halftime.

Midway through the second half Ameilet Rischen scored the Terps final goal of the game on a fastbreak opportunity with an assist by Bri Davies. It would be the final goal of the game for the Terps, giving them what would become a precarious, but insurmountable lead.

The Terps saw their 3-0 lead slowly slip away as the Demon Deacons made a great play to score and cut into the lead at 3-1. Wake Forest then used three penalty corners and struck on the last one with under four minutes to play to make it a one goal game.

The Terps sat on the ball but then with five seconds to go, the Demon Deacons drew a foul just outside the 25 yard line. The ball surprisingly made it through the half circle on a pass and found Casella on the left post who took a shot but hooked it wide as Alicia Grater closed in to seal off the Terps win.

Maryland will play Virginia for the ACC Championship on Sunday after the Cavaliers upset No.2 North Carolina later in the evening to advance.

Charlottesville Craziness

By: Andy Gripshover

Greetings once again, it's me, Andy, coming to you LIVE from the Hilton Garden Inn here in Hooville. We've been here two nights and we'll be here two more in all likelyhood but here's what we've been through so far:

-Bus ride down was uneventful. Oh yeah, except for the part where we had one of the greatest dinners in the history of humankind. We stopped at a place called Cracker Barrel, a half-gift shop, half-restaurant conglomeration. In the restaurant part, BK had roast beef, green beans, carrots, and corn. I had chicken and dumplings, mashed potatoes, green beans, and apple sauce and tore through it like McNabb picking apart the Dallas secondary this Sunday night (for you, BK :D) Holy crap the South knows how to do food.

We ate with Coach Meharg but were unable to get super secret game plans out of her for the weekend's games. Instead she regaled us with tales of being a coach on campus at Maryland during the aftermath of the Len Bias tragedy (the topic came up as we discussed "Without Bias", the ESPN 30 for 30 documentary which I shamefully haven't seen yet), which was very cool.

-Watched some baseball last night. Some New York team won some championship. I'd tell you more but there hasn't been too much coverage of it today.

We wanted to watch a rerun of "Without Bias" afterward but (in all seriousness now) ESPN2 stopped showing it to show YankeeCenter since the basketball game on ESPN ran long. Whatever. I fell asleep.

-Switched rooms because our original room only had one king size bed. As BK went downstairs though, he was apparently on an elevator with like half the Boston College field hockey team (who's also staying here...at least they were until they lost today) while wearing his Maryland sweatshirt. Apparently he got some dirty looks which: I'm not glad I wasn't there for that. Awkkkkkkkkward!!!

-In the trip's biggest upset, we were entertained by "Freaky Friday." Not a bad movie; very fun and not a bad life lesson at the end of it all. And it was back before Lindsay Lohan was ruined. Unfortunately, after it was over, we couldn't watch Wake/BC on ACC Select and we no longer had the beautiful lake view that the odd numbered rooms got to admire (we switched from 217 to 420) so we decided to...

-...go to Giant! I got five, yes FIVE Stouffer's frozen dinners for $10 ($2 a meal? Yes please!), a couple bags of pretzels (Utz vs. Snyder's? We'll find out the superior brand soon enough), some Christmas Oreos (red frosting, they're solid), and Dr Pepper (a.k.a. the best soda ever.) Then we went to Blockbuster, one of the three across the country that aren't closing, and bought cheap DVD's. Brian got four romantic comedies (no comment) and I got "Alpha Dog" (wanted to see it for a while, heard good things, lots of hot ladies, JT's the man, etc.) and "How To Lose Friends And Alienate People" (hey, I have a Megan Fox thing; plus the title's great.) I still haven't watched "Cry_Wolf" from the previous trip thanks to being uber busy. I'll get to it...

-Brian's lunch today was "Sticks", which he described as "Chipotle for Indian people." Needless to say, he enjoyed it. I got a roast beef sandwich from Blimpie, which reminded me of Wawa and made me miss it. God, why did you only let Wawa in to my life for the first month of my freshman year?

-Dinner was at the Topeka Steakhouse and Saloon which might not have topped the previous night's dinner but boy did it make a bid. Props to Heather, our waitress, who was very nice and quite attractive as well with a fantastic smile. God, I love the South. I got a New York Strip, baked potato, and applesauce. BK got a Prime Rib and the largest sweet potato in the history of the Milky Way. That's not even hyperbole, this thing was GIGANTIC. He really should've taken a picture of it but we're not forward-thinking like that, unfortunately. Pricing was very fair as well; we only dropped about $25 each which: considering the amount of food we had was a bargain.

Well that's it for me. I'm about to pass out as it's 12:20, it's been a long day, and I consumed an unhealthy amount of food tonight. Wake tomorrow at 4. BK will be back with a wrapup after it's all done, win or lose. Should be good times. Until then, take care everyone.

Terps to face Wake Forest in ACC tourney second round, UVA advances

by Brian Kapur

It's always Wake Forest. Earlier this year coach Missy Meharg joked that there would be nothing to play for without Wake Forest, so here we go again.

The Demon Deacons defeated Boston College to advance to the semi-finals. Meanwhile, Virginia defeated Duke to advance into a contest with North Carolina.

The Terps game against Wake Forest will be broadcast on WMUCSports.com starting at 3:45pm .

Terps complete first undefeated regular season, honor seniors

by Brian Kapur

Missed the game? Listen to a replay here

The Terps celebrated senior day in style by blowing away 6-2.

Early in the game, the Terps and Cardinal made adjustments and got used to each other in a rare cross-country field hockey match up. The Terps struck early off a penalty corner with Emma Thomas hitting a drag shot. But the Cardinals answered right back with a goal of their own.

But this was to be the Terps' night and their penalty corner attack was nearly unstoppable as the Terps converted four of 12. Thomas added in a penalty stroke, while fellow senior Nicole Muracco added in two goals while Katie O'Donnell tossed in a pair as well. Freshman Meghan Frazer finished the Terps offensive barrage with a goal in late in the game to give the Terps their final 6-2 margin, despite Stanford making 12 saves.

Terps' keeper Alicia Grater finished with four saves.

The Terps head to the ACC tournament looking to repeat, first game is Friday at 4pm.