ACC hands out women's lacrosse awards and Terps win a few

The ACC announced its post season awards for women's lacrosse Tuesday and while Maryland didn't sweep them, members of the Terrapins family did bring home some hardware. Megan Douty won Defensive Player of the Year, Zoe Stukenberg shared the Freshman of the Year award with North Carolina's Sydney Holman, and Cathy Reese was named Coach of the Year for the sixth consecutive time.

This is the eighth consecutive year at least one Maryland player has won an ACC Player of the Year award. Oddly, in a testament to the Terps' balance, the player most would consider Maryland's MVP, Taylor Cummings, was shut out of the awards. Cummings led the Terrapins with 101 draw controls, 33 ground balls, and 27 caused turnovers. The sophomore was second or tied for second in goals (51), assists (23), and points (74).

In truth, I think the ACC coaches got this about right. Offensive Player of the Year went to Kayla Treanor of Syracuse. Treanor led the league in goals and total points. Seven players in the league scored between fifty and fifty-nine goals and three of them play for Maryland. One player in the league scored seventy goals and that player is Kayla Treanor. Adding 32 assists to those 70 goals, she is also the only player in the conference to enter the NCAA Tournament with over 100 total points.

Megan Douty - Defensive Player of the Year

Defensive play can be difficult to quantify but Douty clearly had a productive season at that end of the field for the ACC's stingiest defensive squad. On the season, the junior from Fair Haven, NJ picked up 27 ground balls and caused 16 turnovers. These are solid but unspectacular numbers.

However, watching defensive play in lacrosse can be subjective because it often involves double teams and slides to contain the opposing offense. As a result, crediting an individual's play can be tricky. In Douty's case, she anchored a defense that yielded only eight goals per game in a league that, in addition to Maryland, featured four other teams in the top fifteen in goals per game in the country. Douty frequently found herself having to contain the opposition's leading scorer one on one. That she did so while committing only sixteen fouls speaks to the effectiveness of her play.

Zoe Stukenberg - Co-Freshman of the Year

Kudos to the ACC coaches for recognizing Stukenberg's performance on a very balanced Maryland team. It would have been understandable for co-winner, North Carolina's Sydney Holman, to have won the award outright. Holman scored 34 goals and doled out 27 assists to finish second on UNC with 61 points. She also picked up 22 ground balls. However, she had a propensity to turn the ball over doing so 33 times on the season.

Srukenberg, was nearly as effective finding the net 32 times. She finished the year with nine assists and fifteen ground balls. Unlike her co-winner, the Terrapins' freshman had only 18 turnovers. Stukenberg also contributed to Maryland's dominance in draw controls picking up 20 on the season.

Cathy Reese - Coach of the Year

It's probably fair to say that Maryland's head coach Cathy Reese is good at her job. Reese has been the Terps' head coach for eight years. In that time, Maryland has finished first or tied for first in ACC play seven times. They have won the ACC Tournament six times (consecutively). As they enter their eighth consecutive NCAA tournament under Reese, they have appeared in the quarter finals twice, the semifinals twice, the finals twice, and have one NCAA Championship. That's an impressive resume.

This year's ACC Coach of the Year Award marks the sixth consecutive time and seventh overall Reese has been so honored. No ACC women's lacrosse coach has won the award as many times as Reese.