Rambo, Maryland hoping 10th time is charm
La Salle grad has unfinished business in championship game
Around this time every year, Frank Urso knows that the question, part compliment and part lament, is coming.
Is this the year, the paragon of Maryland lacrosse’s illustrious program hears all the time, that the drought ends? All Urso can offer is the truth.
“We’ve been waiting for this a long time,” the Garnet Valley boys lacrosse coach said Sunday.
Urso was a junior in 1975, the third of his unprecedented four first-team All-American seasons with the Terrapins, when he led Maryland to the national title on the way to national player of the year honors. Since, the Terps have made nine national finals, falling short each time, including in Urso’s senior season.
The hope of a vibrant and long-suffering alumni community is that tenth time’s the charm Monday when the topseeded Terps square off with Ohio State in the championship game (1 p.m., ESPN2).
Maryland’s finals fruitlessness is arguably the sport’s highest-profile streak, once the University of Denver in 2015 ended the hegemony of East Coast teams — you guessed it, at the expense of Maryland in the championship game. (Maryland hung on for some revenge Saturday, ousting the No. 5 seed Pioneers, 9-8, in the
national semifinal.)
Urso is a National Lacrosse Hall of Famer whose number 21 is retired at Maryland, where he remains fifth in program history in both points (208) and goals (127) despite drastically diminished schedules in his tenure. He’s been passed on both accounts this season by La Salle graduate Matt Rambo.
Urso scored the gamewinning goal in the 1973 final against Johns Hopkins, and five goals to vanquish Navy in the 1975 title game. His teams lost in the finals in 1974 and 1976, the latter in overtime to Cornell. He remains the program’s alltime leader in NCAA Tournament goals with 32.
But given those halcyon days in the first decade of Division I NCAA lacrosse championships, it’s hard to believe that they stand as the powerhouse’s only crowns. Since the 1975 triumph, Maryland has qualified for 20 Final Fours and now 10 finals, but banner No. 3 — “that stinking championship,” as Urso jokingly refers to it as — remains maddeningly elusive.
They’ve tripped at the last hurdle every which way.
Three times they’ve lost on home turf in College Park. They fell in the final in Foxborough, site of this year’s tournament, in 2012, albeit as an unseeded team at the hands of No. 1 Loyola.
And three times, they’ve succumbed in the championship game as the No. 1 seed, including last year at Lincoln Financial Field, in overtime to unseeded North Carolina, which reads like a heartbreak mad lib.
“It was heart-wrenching,” said Springfield assistant coach and 2008 Maryland grad Ryne Adolph. “You really thought that it was going to happen. There was a ton of alumni back for the game. It was just electric there. When that goal went in, it just ripped your heart out.”
Adolph gained a modicum of consolation from having a former Maryland teammate, Chris Fiefs, triumph as UNC’s defensive coordinator (now the head man at Vermont), but such is the plight of members of Maryland’s tight-knit alumni network, left to sift the championship wreckage for positives.
Adolph, a Springfield grad who played from 200508 after redshirting as a freshman, three times made the Final Four, but his Terrapins never made a final.
The other accolades, in
terms of its consistent excellence in reaching Final Fours, remain outstanding and the envy of many a program. But that final victory has been improbably lacking.
Again this year, Maryland shapes up as the favorite against Big Ten rival Ohio State. The No. 3 seed in the tournament, which bested Towson 11-10 Saturday, is contesting its first Final Four and just its sixth NCAA Tournament.
With an oddly-bulletproof optimism, both Urso and Adolph maintain hope that this is the year. Part of that stems from the star-studded senior class, headed by Rambo, a finalist for the Tewaaraton Award for national player of the year.
Urso texted Rambo last week to congratulate him on his latest batch of milestones and sees in a player he once coached against in high school the necessary pieces to end decades of misery.
“His response was, ‘hey coach, we’re taking it one game at a time,’” Urso said. “Now that they’re finally back in (the final), it is one game. I think they’re pretty darn excited. I think they really feel like it’s their year.”
Rambo leads a gifted senior class that includes AllAmericans Tim Muller and Isaiah Davis-Allen, plus Episcopal Academy AllDelco Jon Garino, a backup faceoff man who played a significant role in the victory over Denver.
Both Urso and Adolph are in regular contact with people close to the program, including seventh-year head coach John Tillman. And as ever, hope springs eternal that a drought stretching to the mind-boggling proportions of 42 years could be just one game from banishment.
“It takes special players to find a way to win that game, to lead the team and win that game,” Urso said. “(Rambo) is certainly the kind of guy who can do it. He’s the kind of guy willing to take the weight on his shoulders to get it done. I think we all look at him that has done amazing things there, getting to finals three years in a row. It’s not easy. It’s hard work.”
“I think sometimes the players put some extra pressure on themselves, but they don’t need to win it for us, win it for the alumni,” Adolph said. “They have to put that on the backburner and try to focus on this game and win this game for themselves. They’re the ones putting in all the work. I know it’s on their minds, but I think this team is more focused and they understand what is at stake and what needs to be done.”