ACC lacrosse awards - Terps go 3 for 4 again

The ACC announced its Players of the Week in men's and women's lacrosse and for the second consecutive week, Maryland took three of the four awards. This week the men picked up both pieces of hardware while the women garnered one. In a repeat performance, Niko Amato was named the Defensive Player of the Week. Teammate Mike Chanenchuk joined the party by capturing the Offensive Player of the Week. On the women's side, Taylor Cummings joined Brooke Griffin as the second Terp to grab Offensive Player of the Week honors.

The men's sweep

For Amato, if eleven saves against Syracuse were sufficient to claim the Defensive Player of the Week, it seemed an almost foregone conclusion that putting up seventeen in the Terrapins 10-6 win against the formerly top ranked Blue Devils would catapult him to a repeat performance. Amato was the wall behind a defense that held Duke to one goal over the game's final 37:58 and that shut out the Blue Devils for nearly twenty-six and a half minutes during that span. Ten of the senior's saves came in the crucial second and third periods when the Terps scored six straight goals to turn a 3-5 deficit into a 9-5 advantage.

During that span, Amato was aided and abetted by Offensive Player of the Week Mike Chanenchuk. The senior midfielder from Poquott, NY, poured in three of his five goals on the day as part of that six goal outburst. Chanenchuk's other goals were critical to establishing some early momentum for the Terps. He scored the Terrapins' first goal of the game knotting the game at one just seven seconds after Duke had taken the early lead. Then he scored again a bit over a minute later to give Maryland its first lead of the game.

After the Terps fell behind by two, Chanenchuk picked up an assist on Colin Heacock's score before netting another equalizer. And it was Chanenchuk who broke through late in a tense and, to that point, scoreless third quarter ringing up back to back scores that provided both momentum and breathing room. The five goals and six points are both career highs for Chanenchuk.

Offense fully intended

In picking up the ACC Offensive Player of the Week, sophomore midfielder Taylor Cummings put together a pair of productive games. In the Terps 14-3 win at Hofstra on Tuesday, Cummings filled up the stat book picking up 5 draw controls, 4 assists, 3 goals, 2 ground balls, and 1 caused turnover. This was only a countdown to her performance in the 19-10 win at Duke on Saturday where her line read 7 draw controls. 5 goals, 3 caused turnovers, 2 ground balls and 1 assist. That's 13 points and 12 draw controls in two games. As they say, that could be a season for some folks. And speaking of seasons, Cummings leads the 6-0 Terps with 21 goals and 25 draw controls. She is also tied with Kelly McPartland for the team lead in assists with eight.