Finality can build gradually or arrive suddenly. If they didn’t know it before, the 51 members of the Maryland men’s lacrosse team do now, after the Terps’ season-ending 16-15 loss Saturday night to visiting Army in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

Graduate student defenseman Brett Makar’s figure afterward was a picture of the realization. After shaking hands with the 62-player deep Army roster, Makar — who was recently picked third overall in the Premier Lacrosse League professional draft and will walk at the Maryland business school’s graduation next week — found his parents near the railing of SECU Stadium’s southwest sideline. They embraced uninterrupted for more than a minute. Then, Makar wandered around the field for longer in one of the end zones, staring 100-plus yards away at the scoreboard. He left the turf only when Maryland coach John Tillman tapped him on the shoulder to come to the locker room.

Makar got a tap on the helmet, too, from freshman defenseman Will Schaller (Bel Air/The Hill School (Pennsylvania)), in the closing moments of the game. It was just before the Terps’ offense began a potential game-tying possession coming out of a Maryland timeout with only 29 seconds left in regulation. If the chance didn’t end with a goal, this would be it — a sendoff for the first Maryland defenseman to wear the program’s iconic No. 1 jersey in 30 years, and the end of this season for everyone. And it was.

On the restart, junior midfielder Jack Koras’ (Loyola Blakefield) weak bouncing shot out of a question-mark dodge went wide right of Army goalie Knox Dent. That was the last chance Maryland had to win in a game that, from a neutral third-party observer, was as terrifically competitive as it was final for the Terps (10-6). Maryland, which a season ago became the first undefeated team to win a national title in 16 years, was bounced in the NCAA tournament first round for the first time since a 16-8 loss to Cornell in 2013.

But a larger core of veteran players, particularly on offense, who led the Terps’ history-making 2022 title team, was not part of this one, which in the end Saturday night had a perhaps appropriately uneven game to cap an inconsistent year.

Army (12-3), the Patriot League champion, raced to a 7-2 first-quarter lead, scoring on all but two of the shots it put on Maryland freshman goalie Brian Ruppel (Catonsville). Because of a 7-1 edge in faceoffs for Terps senior taker Luke Wierman in the second quarter, Maryland rallied to tie the score at 8 at halftime. The sides then traded the lead in the third quarter, with Makar sparking a mini-run for Maryland to go up 12-11 following his scoop and sprint 60 yards for a goal, falling to the ground with his long pole at the tail end of the scamper.

After that, though, as Wierman and Army sophomore Will Coletti (Linganore) battled to a near draw on faceoffs, the Black Knights, even if overmatched in pure talent in some nuanced areas, played with the steel of a bunch of guys who’ve signed up to serve in the military, lest anyone forget. Army regained the lead with two straight goals 28 seconds apart near the start of the fourth quarter, then held on to a one-goal advantage throughout much of the finish, answering with goals each time Maryland tied the score. Army junior midfielder Jacob Morin’s 11-yard lefty rip from the right hashes with 3:36 left was the go-ahead score, and it was a wide-open opportunity after a substitution mistake by the Terps defense in transition.

“A lot of ups and downs,” Makar said. “We didn’t start great, but the way we battled summed up what this group did all year. Handled adversity, whether it was injuries, having to just plug guys in the lineup … guys battling back Monday through Friday just to be able to play on Saturday. That’s kind of the group we had.”

While considered an upset on paper — given Maryland’s fourth-overall seed, defending national champion status and Army’s numberless inclusion in the 17-team Division I men’s bracket — the outcome wasn’t entirely surprising. The Terps have dealt with a pile of injuries that have incrementally remade their lineup, which was already noticeably different from last year’s remarkable unbeaten squad.

The latest setback was particularly debilitating. Junior Ajax Zappitello, one of the three key starters at close defense and nearly interchangeable with Makar in terms of coverage ability, injured his right arm in the Terps’ rivalry game loss to Johns Hopkins on April 22. He missed the entire Big Ten tournament and Saturday’s game, instead wearing a cast on his right wrist. That injury bookended a season that began with another year-ending one to returning All-America goalie Logan McNaney (knee). And that came after projected top offensive threat Eric Malever tore several leg ligaments way back in fall ball, ending his 2023 campaign before it began.

In the end Saturday night, three freshmen — Schaller, Ruppel (who, remember, went viral to help Maryland beat then-No. 1 Virginia earlier this season), and promising and already effective attackman Braden Erksa — were among Maryland’s 10 starters, getting their first taste of every-play-matters national tournament play following an early exit in the Big Ten tournament in a 15-4 dud of a finals loss to Michigan.

Maybe winning a national title in historic fashion last season will ease the pain of the end of the season, but not for the freshmen. Ruppel had a tough night in his NCAA tourney debut, bringing only three saves deep into the fourth quarter, and few would have been surprised if Binghamton grad student transfer Teddy Dolan would have been called on in relief. But Tillman, who works closely with Maryland’s goalies (more than most head coaches), decided against it, clearly not wanting to erode the confidence of a rookie stopper. It wasn’t the last game Ruppel will play, as it was for Makar and Maryland’s other eight grad students, and possibly 11 other seniors (should they not use their extra pandemic-related year of eligibility).

“It’s something that you think about,” Tillman said. “It’s a tricky spot because you’ve got a guy who got us here. You also realize, I didn’t feel like we really set Brian up for success early. We didn’t let him get comfortable and see some shots from the outside and that’s tough. … We can always look back now and say, ‘What if that? What if that?’ but Brian’s gotten us here. We were going to stay with him. … A lot of goalie play is dictated by what’s in front of them and all these guys would say if we’d done a little bit of a better job — including myself — we probably would have had an easier time.”

From our view, that was certainly a fair argument. Army’s offense — which got scoring from 11 different players — often got hands-free shots off seemingly at will that any goalie would have trouble stopping. Morin’s go-ahead tally was the most obvious example, and of the Knights’ 16 goals, at least half were traffic-free shots. “We knew if we could get to good spots on the field, we were going to get good shots,” Morin said.

And on the other end, Dent, the Army senior goalie, made 16 saves, including several sprawling stops in the fourth quarter. “We’ve been in situations like this all year,” Dent said. “We knew what we were getting ourselves into in the fourth quarter, the back and forth. Making some saves and getting the ball going the other way was awesome because our offense was putting it in the back of the net all day.”

Army drove back to West Point through the night on Saturday and will turn around later this week to play fifth-seeded Penn State (9-4) in the quarterfinals on Sunday at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis.

Maryland’s players, coaches and staff now have an open date. Their season is over, but the next isn’t far from anyone’s mind.

Maryland women lose a close one, too

In the women’s Division I tournament, the unranked Terps held a four-goal lead with 9:18 left, but host and seventh-seeded James Madison scored the final five to win 15-14 and dash Maryland’s hope of advancing to the quarterfinals.

James Madison junior attacker Isabella Peterson (Hereford), a Tewaaraton Award finalist, scored seven goals on eight shots for the Dukes (19-2), including the tying score with little more than two minutes to go.

Senior attacker Hannah Leubecker (Forest Hill) and freshman Kori Edmondson (McDonogh) scored four goals and three goals, respectively, for Maryland, whose season is over with a 15-7 record. Edmondson had a chance to tie the game on the final possession with under a minute left on a play drawn up for her after Shaylan Ahearn (Glenelg) came up with a draw control.

“It’s a game that came down to the wire, and could have gone either way,” Maryland coach Cathy Reese said from Harrisonburg, Virginia. “It hurts.” Reese lamented the Terps’ shooting, again, as they outshot James Madison by 10 but converted on only 41% of their chances. Meanwhile, about Peterson, Reese said: “She shot lights out.”

James Madison heads to second-seeded Syracuse (17-2) for a quarterfinal game. The Orange took care of Johns Hopkins 25-8 in a second-round game Sunday.

Hopkins men, Loyola women advance

Not all seasons are over. The Johns Hopkins men crushed visiting Bryant 22-8 Sunday afternoon. Junior attackman Russell Melendez (Archbishop Spalding) scored five goals and four assists to set a program record for points in an NCAA tournament game and the Blue Jays scored their most goals in any game since 2005.

The Blue Jays (12-5) face third-seeded Notre Dame (11-2) Sunday in the quarterfinals at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis with a final four berth up for grabs.

The eighth-seeded Loyola women also advanced to the quarterfinals, surviving to beat upset-minded Stony Brook 9-8 at Ridley Athletic Complex on Sunday. Sophomore midfielder Chase Boyle scored a team-high four goals and grad student midfielder Jillian Wilson had four points and four draw controls, including one with 17 seconds left to stifle a Stony Brook three-goal run to close the game.

The Greyhounds (19-2) will face top-ranked Northwestern (18-1) on the road Thursday.

Salisbury into D-III quarters

The Salisbury men are 20-1 and host Washington and Lee (18-4) in a Division III men’s quarterfinal Saturday. The Sea Gulls beat Amherst 14-10 in a third-round game Sunday.

Corey McLaughlin is a veteran writer and editor who has covered sports in Baltimore for a decade, including for Baltimore magazine, USA Lacrosse Magazine and several other publications.