Through its run in the Big Ten tournament last week, Maryland field hockey struggled to do two things: score early and draw penalty corners.
Hosting Old Dominion in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, No. 4-seed Maryland utilized graduate forward Sammy Popper to address both issues. Popper’s two first-half goals came off penalty corners, which propelled the Terps to a 3-0 win over Old Dominion Friday.
“[Penalty corners] were something we focused a lot on going into the game,” Popper said. “Sometimes games are decided by corners … and we did great with our pressure into the circle with our attack being very connected.