Story By: Erin Zollars
Photos By: Sol Tucker
College Park, MD–
After a rocky start to the 2023-24 season, it looks like Brenda Frese has her #20 Terps ready to hit the ground running going forward as they battled pound for pound today in College Park and squeezed out an 83-81 victory over Syracuse to improve to 2-2.
Overall, the Terps allowed the Orange to stay close the entire second half with the poor shooting down the stretch at 32%. Their 4-for-20 second quarter allowed the Orange to claim runs of nine and seven points making it a tight game all the way to final buzzer.
Alaina Rice hit a 3-pointer for the Orange to make it a two-point game with 23 seconds to go then Kyra Wood forced a turnover with 10 seconds remaining. But Syracuse couldn’t get a look at the basket and Bri McDaniel knocked it away as time expired.
Allie Kubek scored 23 points off the bench; Shyanne Sellers added 19 points for the Terps. Kubek who seems to be finding her groove missed all of last season with an injury and could provide size and depth off the bench that hurt Frese in quite a few games last season.
“Allie did a lot of great things for us today,” said Frese. “She is getting back to the court and finding her way after missing all of last year. She struggled against South Carolina and UCONN, but she is a hard worker and knows what she can do for us game in and game out.”
The matchup favored Syracuse on the boards, but Maryland put up a fight on the glass all game. The Terps outrebounded the Orange, 41-39, and more importantly, won the battle on the offensive glass, 17-13. This was a big difference in being able to keep the game close in the final minutes.
The Terps move on to Cancun on Tuesday for a match-up against Washington State.
It is clear that this team has a lot to work on before the start of the Big Ten season. Two blow outs to start the season and a close game today could change the ranking this week for the Terps.
