Former Maryland men’s lacrosse goalie Kyle Bernlohr leads Ohio Machine to 2017 MLL Championship

Kyle Bernlohr never got to hoist a championship trophy with his teammates at Maryland, but he added some hardware to his mantle this weekend.

On Saturday, the Ohio Machine beat the Denver Outlaws for the 2017 Major League Lacrosse Championship with Bernlohr as the starting goalie. The former Maryland standout faced 23 shots on goal, allowing just 12 scores and making 11 saves.

In his second year with the Machine, Bernlohr led the entire league with a .567 save percentage, and earned the MLL’s Most Improved Player Award. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that watched the Akron native in college; he finished 10th on Maryland’s all-time saves list with 369 stops.

Winner of the 2015 Ensign C. Markland Kelly Jr. Award, given to the nation’s most outstanding goalie, Bernlohr left a legacy with Maryland lacrosse that won’t soon be forgotten. The starting goalie as a junior and senior, he led the Terps to two straight national title games, set program records for single-season victories in 2015 (15) and 2016 (17), and allowed 10 or more goals just four times.

In the 2016 National Championship game against North Carolina, Bernlohr made possibly the greatest save that will be forgotten in the history books.

The Terps captured the long-awaited title a year after Bernlohr graduated, but his play was instrumental in the program’s success as of late, and he’s continued making big saves at the next level.

In other news

Maryland football’s class of 2018 just keeps getting bigger and better, as the Terps picked up verbal commitments from 6’8 offensive tackle T.J. Bradley and 6’5 tight end Chigoziem Okonkwo this weekend.

Junior Ty Johnson and sophomore Lorenzo Harrison must lead a young but talented running back unit this year.

With the season opener against Texas on the horizon, Maryland’s quarterback battle has been seemingly narrowed down to sophomore Ty Pigrome and incoming freshman Kasim Hill.

Maryland women’s soccer is already one win away from matching last year’s total, as the Terps downed Drexel in the season opener and took care of Navy two days later.

Meanwhile, the No. 6-ranked men’s team went undefeated in exhibition play, including a 3-0 rout of No. 8 Syracuse.

ESPN’s latest round of 2018 Bracketology has Maryland in an NCAA Tournament play-in game.