The season is over and there has been some time to digest all that's gone on since May 22, so this is as good a time as any to wrap up the season with the final regular Maryland Men's Lacrosse Blog for 2010.

There are no style points at this time of year - it's survive and advance and that's what the Terps did last week against Hofstra. We'll touch on that game, but first we'll look ahead to Notre Dame and check out the News & Notes.

The first season is over. Let the second season begin. The Terps are the No. 3 seed in the 2010 NCAA men's lacrosse tournament and we'll start there with the Hofstra game, then get into some News & Notes, including some thoughts on the NCAA tournament and finish with a look back at last week's Colgate game.

This week the blog breaks from its usual pattern with News & Notes kicking things off with an overview of what we know about the NCAA tournament. Then we'll get into reviewing the win over Fairfield and looking forward to the game vs. Colgate, .

There's a lot to get through this week, so we'll skip the witty (if they ever were witty) intro paragraph and get right to last week's ACC tournament, news and notes and this week's game vs. Fairfield.

The Terps' four-week run through Carolina, Virginia, Navy and Hopkins is over, but the fun isn't, as Maryland now has to get ready for the ACC tournament and a semifinal meeting with the No. 3 North Carolina Tar Heels Friday night. We'll touch on that game, as well as some news and notes, but first - let's talk about the Hopkins game.

There's only one thing that needs to be said about this week - it's Hopkins week! For the 106th time (or 96th officially for the Terps - the first 10 were played before men's lacrosse program was an official university athletic program) the Terrapins and the Blue Jays will hook up on the lacrosse field.

In a bit of a switch, we'll start with Hopkins, look back at the Navy game and then finish with some news and notes.

There's no time for worrying about what coulda, woulda, shoulda with regards to last Saturday's Virginia game (although we will get into that a bit here), because it's Navy week. Let's take a short review of the game vs. the Wahoos, get into some news & notes and finish with an early look forward to the Mids.

No one said this season was going to be easy. The North Carolina game is in the rearview mirror and with No. 1 Virginia coming up on Saturday there is no time to dwell on the past. However, we will take a look back at the Terps' trip to Chapel Hill, get into some news and notes and finish with a preview of the Wahoos.

From the ACC: 

Maryland junior attackman Grant Catalino and Virginia junior midfielder Rhamel Bratton were named the Atlantic Coast Conference Men's Lacrosse Co-Players of the Week for the period ending on Sunday, March 7.

Catalino had a career-best five goals, including the game-winner, one assist, and four groundballs in the seventh-ranked Terrapins' 11-10 overtime victory over No. 9 Duke at the Konica Minolta Face-Off Classic at M&T Bank Stadium. The Webster, N.Y., native tallied his first career overtime goal at the 1:50 mark in the extra period, while Maryland possessed the ball for only eight seconds of the overtime period.  Catalino had two goals in the first quarter, one in the second and third and his final goal of the day in overtime. With his second goal of the game, Catalino reached the 100-point mark for his career and now has 104 points on 62 goals and 42 assists. Catalino was also a key component in Maryland's defensive presence with his four groundballs and a caused turnover.

Maryland is now 56-17 all-time against Duke. The 56 wins are the most for the Terrapins against any one opponent, and the overtime win marked Maryland's first since defeating Navy 8-7 in two OTs in 2007. 

Bratton tallied a career-high four goals in No. 2 Virginia's 11-10 victory in front of 7,501 fans at Klöckner Stadium over top-ranked Syracuse. The Huntington Station, N.Y, native's goal at 5:46 in the second quarter helped erase an early 5-2 Orange lead and gave UVa the lead for good, 6-5.  Bratton scored three of his goals unassisted on All-American goalie John Galloway and added two groundballs for the winning effort.

The last four meetings between Syracuse and Virginia in the series each have been determined by one goal, with UVa holding the 3-1 advantage during the span. The victory is also UVa's second consecutive over Syracuse when the Orange are ranked No. 1 in the nation and the Cavaliers are No. 2.

Obviously, there were a lot of good things in the Duke game after watching the film.

Our guys played hard and competed throughout the game. When negative things happened, our leaders stood up to the task. We kept playing the whole game at an intense level. We stayed together as a team and never lost focus.

While we did a lot of good things against Duke, we also have a lot of things to work on. We did not clear the ball as well as we should and we must improve our effort on riding, particularly with our attack. We didn't win the groundball battle at times and that caused us to play a lot more defense than we should have had to play. We lost a lot of 50-50 groundballs on the face-off that we could have had. We also didn't do a good job handling the ball on the offensive end in the final four minutes of the fourth quarter. We got several stops and turned the ball back over to Duke. Moving forward we must get better organized and our attack must work harder to get the ball, sprint with it when they have it, and make better decisions.

We were happy to win the game, but must continue to focus on the areas we need to improve on. A famous coach once said it is no different than when you start to get a cold; if you do nothing about it, the odds are it is going to get worse. However, if you take care of yourself, you will minimize your chances of getting sick.

Certainly, we want to maximize our potential, to get better and continue to improve not only through knowledge and understanding, but to get the right people on the field that have the ability to execute what we need to do and have the right motivation and discipline to carry it our when they are in the game.

Towson is our next opponent and we have a lot of respect for its coaches, players and program. They have a Hall of Fame coach who will have his players very well prepared, organized and motivated. Towson is a team that always plays hard. This game has always meant a lot to their coaches and players and we will have to match their intensity and enthusiasm.

This will be our first game on grass and we must be able to make the adjustment to a new surface.

Monday will be a day to fix some mistakes and improve our team. Tuesday, our players will start preparing for the Tigers.

Saturday will be our first home game in Capital One Field at Byrd Stadium since 2008 and we are very excited to play our first game at home.

"Be The Best!"

New this year for the Maryland men's lacrosse team are weekly award given by the team captains and the coaching staff.

For the Bellarmine game, junior close defenseman Ryder Bohlander was selected for the Coaches' Award, while sophomore midfielder Jake Bernhardt was the pick for the Captains' Award. Bohlander made his second career start in the season opener at Bellarmine and led the defense with a career-best two caused turnovers and a groundball. Bernhardt made his first career start vs. the Knights and set career-bests with three points and two goals.

Senior midfielder Will Yeatman was a double winner following the Terps' 15-13 come-from-behind win at Georgetown. Yeatman was chosen for the Captains' Award and was co-recipient of the Coaches' Award with redshirt junior Brian Farrell. Yeatman had his first hat trick as a Terp vs. the Hoyas, scoring all three goals during Maryland's decisive 7-0 run that spanned the third and fourth quarters. Farrell was easily the best defensive player on the field vs. the Hoyas. The long pole, who missed nearly all of 2009 with a rib and internal injuries, returned to his All-America form and set career-bests with 10 groundballs and six caused turnovers. He also contributed to the offense with an assist on Scott LaRue's second quarter goal.

Wow! What a game. What a comeback! What a week ahead.

The only place to start with the blog this week is to look back at the wild game at Georgetown.

BONUS BLOG: Last week's Terrapin men's basketball game vs. Georgia Tech had a déjà vu moment for Maryland men's lacrosse fans.

An inadvertent whistle on a timeout that wasn't called by Maryland head coach Gary Williams wiped out a half-court three by Greivis Vasquez that would have won the game for the Terps.

That sounds eerily similar to the inadvertent whistle that wiped out Grant Catalino's would-have-been game-winning goal just seconds into the first overtime at Virginia last March.

Unlike the lacrosse game, which went an NCAA-record seven overtimes and saw the Cavaliers pull out the win, the basketball refs were bailed out by Terp junior Cliff Tucker, who buried a three-pointer as time expired to give Maryland the 76-74 victory.

As Yogi Berra once famously said, it was déjà vu all over again. But this time the good guys came away with the win.

This is going to be just a quick update simply because practice has not officially started and there is not a lot of news to report. Next week will be a completely different story however - practice starts on Monday!

Welcome to the start of the third year of the Maryland Men's Lacrosse Blog. I hope everyonel had a safe and happy holiday season.

As readers and fans have seen during the past two years, this blog is mostly about the Maryland program -- its players, coaches, staff, alumni, friends and family. But, from time to time, I'll address some of the bigger-picture issues in college lacrosse.