The score remained 2-0, Michigan, until the 66th minute, when the home team, backed up on its heels under relentless Maryland pressure, was called for a handball in the penalty box. Gordon Wild converted the penalty kick, bringing the Terps back to within a goal. But the Wolverines appeared to be withstanding the Maryland charge, avoiding a second Maryland score with 5:47 left when two officials could not agree that a Maryland shot went completely over the goal line before being kicked away. But with just 61 seconds left, Wild sent a ball screaming through the goal mouth from the Keeper's right. Chris Odoi-Atsem slid hard to the ball and forced it past a beaten Wolverine Keeper, Evan Louro.
That tied the game and led quickly to overtime. Neither team scored - or came close to scoring - in the first overtime, and it began to look like the second OT would also pass without a score. Suddenly, however, the relentless pressure paid off. With just 70 seconds left before the match would end in a tie, Wild gained the ball and fired a shot from the middle of the penalty box. Louro and his mates kept that shot from going in, but the rebound was not controlled and ricocheted quickly to Suli Dainkeh, who had pushed up further and further as the match moved along. Dainkeh ripped a bullet to the far post and near the top of the goal. Louro had no chance. The jubilant Dainkeh looked stunned, himself, for he had never scored a goal in his four years in College Park.
The victory for Maryland was all the more amazing because it came with three starters and a top reserve kept out with an injury and a bout of food poisoning. Amar Sejdic, Sebastian Elney, Eryk Williamson and D.J. Reeves all missed the game, and Andrew Samuels left the game in the first half, never to return. Terp Coach Sasho Cirovski cobbled together a line-up that featured Wild wide on the offensive wing and Jake Rozhansky and Keegan Kelly prowling the center of the pitch. Alex Crognale and Cody Albrecht anchored the defensive middle. Donovan Pines came on for Samuels and did a bang-up job. He narrowly missed scoring when Louro, already going down to stop a previous shot, managed to flick a Pines shot from five feet away over the cross bar. As the second half moved along, Odoi-Atsem and Dainkeh pushed further and further forward until they became factors in the offense, which was producing tremendous pressure on the Michigan Defense.
Maryland, ranked No. 1 again, now returns home and will play a Big Ten Tournament Quarterfinal next Sunday (4 pm) against the winner of a match on Saturday between Eighth Seeded Michigan and Ninth Seeded Rutgers. The match on Sunday will be televised on the Big Ten Network. The Semi-Finals and Finals will be played the following weekend in Indianapolis. It is the tournament winner that gets the Big Ten's Automatic Berth in the NCAA Tournament, although Maryland, by virtue of its two month run as the No. 1 team in the nation and its regular season Big Ten championship, is as close to a certain bet to make the NCAA field as any team in These United States.
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