Great games for the ordinary become ordinary games for the great when as a sophomore you won the Tewaaraton Award as the best women's lacrosse player in the NCAA. Such is the world of Maryland's Taylor Cummings. The season was four weeks old (for Maryland) before Cummings won a Big Ten Offensive Player of the Week Award. Let's take a look at the first three weeks before we cover what she did to finally earn the honor.
In the Terrapins' season opener at William and Mary, Cummings launched four shots and scored four goals. The junior added nine draw controls, four caused turnovers and picked up two ground balls. The Big Ten's Offensive Player of the Week was Cummings' teammate, Zoe Stukenberg.
The following week against second ranked North Carolina, Cummings had five draw controls, two ground balls, two caused turnovers and needed all of five shots to score three goals. That week, the award went to Northwestern's Selena Lasota.
In week three the Terrapins traveled to Long Island where they registered a 14-6 win over the Hofstra Pride. Cummings' final stat line of two goals (on four shots), three assists, one ground ball and four draw controls would be exceptional for many, if not most lacrosse players. By Cummings' standards, the game could be considered somewhat pedestrian. Stating the needless, it wasn't Cummings but Penn State's Maggie McCormick who won that week's award.
Ah, but in week four, Cummings had two games in which to work her magic. In Maryland's midweek 14-7 win over UMBC, the junior from McDonogh School scored four goals and notched an assist. She added a ground ball, two caused turnovers, and eight draw controls. (UMBC had five as a team.)
Saturday, the Terps hosted the then sixth ranked Syracuse Orange. At halftime, Syracuse had three goals, four draw controls and no assists. At the same point in the game, Taylor Cummings had three goals, four draw controls, and one assist. Cummings finished the game with six goals, one assist, two ground balls, two caused turnovers and six draw controls.
Three of her goals were also momentum changers. In the first half, Cummings scored to give Maryland a 5-3 lead after the Orange had closed to within a goal. The others came in the second half when she stopped a three goal blitz by Kayla Treanor and then after the disallowed goal that put the Terps up 9-7 and all but sealed the game.
And that, my friends, is what it takes for Taylor Cummings to win the Big Ten Offensive Player of the Week.