BALTIMORE, Maryland November 28, 2015 - In the 2013 NCAA Soccer Title Game, Notre Dame directly benefitted from one of the worst jobs of officiating ever in so important a game to "defeat" Maryland. How bad was it? A Maryland player took a shot on goal and beat the keeper. A Notre Dame defender, not wanting to allow the score but not thinking clearly in the heat of the moment, stuck his arm out and blocked the shot. Maryland's Patrick Mullins reached up in the air with his arm and hand and pulled the rebound down to his feet, whereupon he kicked it and scored.
The official saw none of this. He allowed the Maryland score by Mullins as it was, despite the two intentional hand balls that happened before it. What's wrong with the result? This happened in the first half. The act by the Irish defender is an automatic red card and Notre Dame should have been playing a man down from that point on. Maryland should have had a penalty kick, to be taken by Mullins, which he certainly would've made, and Maryland would have still been up, 1-0. From that point on, Notre Dame, playing at full strength, scored two goals and won, 2-1. The official, incidentally, missed another obvious hand ball by Notre Dame in the second half and in the box, but by then, what did it matter?
Fast-forward to today in South Bend, Indiana, and Notre Dame's home field. Maryland won the Big Ten Tournament. Notre Dame didn't win the ACC Tournament. The two teams played in Indianapolis on the first day of the current season and tied, 0-0. But Notre Dame was seeded higher in the NCAA tournament. Now, there is 12 minutes left in South Bend and Maryland leads, 2-1. An irish player puts his arms around Maryland's Ivan Magalhaes, a junior defender from Brazil who had earlier scored the Terps' first goal of the game. and wrestled him to the ground. It was that simple and you will see the replay and see that I am not exagerating. But the referee gave a yellow card to Magalhaes, his second of the game, meaning he was disqualified and Maryland had to play a man down for the final twelve minutes.
This time, Maryland won anyway. After Magalhaes scored, Eryk Williamson scored for the sixth straight game and the Terps held on to win, 2-1. The Irish scored in the 42nd minute off of a corner kick to pull back within a goal, but could not score again. In the final minute a close in shot hit off the post for Notre Dame. Maryland had a Mael Korboz shot bang off the cross-bar and David Kabelik barely missed on a back-footed shot that would have made Maryland's journey much easier if it had found the back of the net.
Maryland now awaits the winner of the match between Clemson and UC-Santa Barbara to learn its opponent in the national quarter-finals next weekend. If UC-Santa Barbara should win, the match will be at Ludwig Field in College Park.
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