Before I start
Did I ever need Sunday. Saturday was a very difficult one for me. First, I woke up with the misery inducing stomach virus I’d contracted Friday still bent on making me uncomfortable. Then, while not unexpected, the agita intensified with Jen Adams’ Loyola women’s lacrosse team lost at Syracuse in the NCAA Tournament quarterfinal. How nice it would have been to have the team coached by likely the greatest player to don a Maryland women’s lacrosse uniform crash the Final Four party.
Things got even worse when Notre Dame, about whom you might have heard me say on Terp Talk I couldn’t pick or root for in an intrasquad game, beat Albany in the NCAA Men’s Lacrosse Tournament quarterfinal. For me, any time Notre Dame wins at anything, it hurts. This time it hurt a bit more because it killed my last chance to see the great Lyle Thompson play lacrosse as a collegian.
Then came Sunday. Although they had me a bit on edge in the first half, the Terps’ women’s lacrosse team played as close to a perfect second half as I may have ever seen and crushed Northwestern 17-5 to earn their seventh consecutive trip to the Final Four.
By the time I finished the story about the women’s game, maneuvered my way around the graduation traffic on campus and got home, the men’s lacrosse team was more than halfway through making North Carolina look like their heels were stuck in tar. Maryland held the nation’s third most prolific offense to only two goals for the first 42 and a half minutes before surrendering a slew of meaningless late goals with the outcome long decided. And still the Terps held the Tar Heels to less than half their season long per game average.
No, it’s not bait and switch
So what, you may rightly wonder, does all of the above have to do with Thea LaFond and Amber Melville? Well, that they supplied my Sunday with even better news when I read that Melville won the Big Ten outdoor high jump championship adding it to her indoor title and LaFond captured the B1G triple jump.
For me, it’s particularly exciting to see Terrapins track and field athletes succeed. Just over three years ago Maryland announced a list of eight sports it planned to cut from its athletics programs. Track and field was on that list but a last ditch effort raised enough money to keep the program alive. The triumph of athletes like LaFond and Melville shows what Terps can accomplish under budget restraints. Imagine what they might achieve if they were more richly funded.
As a team, Maryland finished tenth with 45 points just a single point behind ninth place Wisconsin. In addition to Melville and LaFond, six Terrapins women earned points for the squad. Myah Hicks (Sr., Alexandria, VA) finished sixth in the 800 meters for three team points. Chioma Onyekwere (Jr., Fairfax, VA) picked up eight team points third in the shot pot and seventh in the discus. Peyton Wade (Fr., Aurora, IL) also registered points in two events by finishing third inthe heptathlon and tying with her teammate LaFond for eighth place in the high jump. Micha Powell (So., Toronto, Ontario) was the sixth Terp to add to her team’s total with her fifth place finish in the 400 meter sprint.
But the day belongs to LaFond and Melville
Amber Melville, a senior from North Carroll High School in Westminster, cleared 5’11.5″ a height she has regularly cleared all season. She cleared the height on her second attempt and won the outdoor title to accompany her indoor title in the same event.
A graduate of Kennedy High School in Silver Spring, Thea LaFond captured the triple jump crown with a leap of 44’2.5″. She also contributed half a team point by tying for eighth in the high jump and another six points by virtue of her 20’2.5″ long jump which was good enough for third place. Also a senior, LaFond will, along with Melville, wrap up her Terrapins career in the NCAA Tournament that begins Thursday.
Congratulations and good competing to them both.
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