Riley Reese Winner Clinches Memorable Senior Night for Maryland

COLLEGE PARK, Md. — Riley Reese was always going to remember his Senior Night at Maryland. He made sure plenty of others will now, too.

The defenseman scored his first career goal 80 seconds into overtime as the Terrapins scraped out an 8-7 victory over Ohio State before 5,183 at SECU Stadium.

“That was a surreal feeling,” Reese said. “To be able to win the game in general, a Big Ten game, that’s always the goal at the end of the day. It was harder than we wanted it to be, but we fought hard.”

That sentiment could sum up the senior’s career as well. He missed two of his first three seasons with injury (so technically, he has another year or two to play for the Terps). And he hadn’t even made a start until star defenseman Will Schaller was injured last month.

But if anyone was meant to make some kind of mark at Maryland, it was Reese. His mother, Cathy, is a former All-American who has been part of a combined 12 national title teams (four as a player, three as an assistant, five as a head coach) at the school. His father, Brian, played long pole as the Terps reached the national title game in 1995, 1997 and 1998 and earned honorable mention All-America honors as a senior.

Riley Reese’s opportunity was rooted in being heady enough to remain on the field in an unsettled situation. As the Buckeyes subbed in their defensive midfielders, Reese parked himself in front of the crease and behind a pair of attackmen. Grad student Eric Spanos zipped it to the doorstep, and Reese then did what the Terps (5-4, 2-1 Big Ten) had struggled to do for the previous 55 minutes: Beat Caleb Fyock for a goal.

“He’s a smart player and a tough player, and he loves Maryland lacrosse. …,” Brian Reese said on the field after the team’s postgame Senior Day ceremony. “For him to put all the time in and finally get a chance to show himself and the kind of player he is, it’s been amazing for a parent.”

Fyock returned after injuries limited him to partial games the last two weeks as the Buckeyes (8-3, 1-2) split their first two conference games. And while Maryland zipped to a 4-0 lead in less than six minutes, Fyock soon created headaches for the Terps with the help of Ohio State switching to a zone defense.

The junior had at least three saves in every quarter and did plenty to help limit Maryland’s starting attack unit to 1-for-20 shooting.

“He was a warrior last week, he wasn’t 100 percent and it was obvious,” Ohio State coach Nick Myers said. “He had a really good week of practice. It comes as really no surprise. It was great to see it, but we saw it all week in practice and felt really good going into tonight that he was ready to go.”

The flip side of the effectiveness of Fyock and the Buckeye defense was a miserable stretch of offense for Maryland. The Terps led 5-2 after a quarter, then scratched out single goals in the second and third quarters. By the time Reese delivered the winner, Maryland was in a drought of 25:28.

Those struggles help explain why the Terps coach John Tillman was willing to let transition opportunities play out twice in overtime. Short stick George Stamos ruggedly collected a ground ball to secure faceoff man Henry Dodge’s victory to open the extra period but held onto the ball a bit too long after charging toward the goal and was forced into a turnover.

On a night Maryland’s offense is functioning better, maybe Tillman uses the timeout. But he wasn’t going to take the chance on letting Ohio State set up its defense.

“We have to be a lot better,” Tillman said. “I’m frustrated, to be honest. I’m happy for these guys that we won, but two goals in three quarters — and obviously we got one here — you’re really not scoring a lot of goals. Disappointing, but I know the next couple days we’ll put a lot of time in. We just have to help these guys be better.”

There could be a similar sentiment for the Buckeyes, who were held to a pair of Alex Marinier goals on 18 shots as a team after halftime. They turned it over on a midfield violation in their only overtime possession and have now managed 33 goals over their last five games.

In a reflection of how stout a defense it has, Ohio State has won two of those contests and lost two more by a goal.

“We kind of got away with the faceoff and got a chance at it. We’d loved to have seen a better look on goal and we didn’t get it,” Myers said. “Nothing was coming easy for either team in the half-field today. That’s kind of life in the Big Ten right now.”

Which is why it was fitting for things to end with a goal from such an unexpected source. Maryland hadn’t won on an overtime goal by a defenseman or long pole since at least 1997 and quite possibly much further back than that.

But aptly for the son of a Hall of Fame coach, Reese put himself in the right place to seal his place in Terps lore and move Maryland into a tie for the Big Ten lead.

“We go through situations like that all the time in practice, so the ball came up the field, I went to the spot I was supposed to go and it kind of worked out,” Riley Reese said. “Eric had great vision and saw me on the pipe. My guy kind of came off me and I just filled a role and was open. Coach tells us it works, right?”

Never better than it did Saturday night.