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The America East Champion Vermont men's lacrosse team – winner of a program-best 10 straight games – heads to College Park Sunday for a meeting with No. 1 Maryland in the First Round of the NCAA Tournament.
 
All the action between the Catamounts and Terrapins begins at noon from Capital One Field at Maryland Stadium and can be seen on ESPNU.
 
Tickets are available by clicking here. 
 
RELATED LINKS
ESPNU | Live Stats
 
LAST TIME OUT
Michael McCormack and Thomas McConvey each scored five goals and Ryan Cornell made 12 saves as Vermont stormed to its first ever NCAA Tournament win, 15-3, over Manhattan on Wednesday night. Tommy Burke was dominant at the faceoff dot winning 19-of-21 draws to go with a season-high 13 ground balls. Manhattan scored the first goal of the game but the Cats responded with eight straight to take full control of the season's final game at Virtue Field. A crowd of 1,611 was on hand for the contest which is a new attendance record at Virtue for lacrosse.
 
MILESTONES
McConvey continued to add to his single-season program-record for goals with five more on Wednesday giving him an even 60 on the year. No other Vermont player has ever scored more than 50 goals in a season. Chris Feifs won his 49^th game at the helm which is the second-most all-time at Vermont. David Closterman (28G, 35A) and McConvey (60G, 13A) represent the first tandem each with 60+ points in a season since 1997.
 
ALL-LEAGUE HONORS
Eleven Catamounts earned 14 spots across the America East All-Conference teams, it was announces earlier Wednesday. A program and conference record nine Cats earned First Team All-Conference status headlined by Offensive Player of the Year Thomas McConvey and Defensive Player of the Year Ryan Cornell. David Closterman, Brock Haley, Will Jones, Jackson Canfield, Tommy Burke, Pat Murphy and Nick Alviti were all named to the First Team. Michael McCormack earned a spot on the Second Team while Charlie Pope was UVM's lone representative on the All-Rookie Team.
 
CATS IN THE RANKINGS
UVM finds itself in the thick of the national rankings in a number of categories. The Cats rank second in the country in man-down defense killing penalties at a .768 clip and they rank ninth in caused turnovers per game (9.61). Vermont's scoring defense ranks third nationally giving up 8.88 goals per game. UVM ranks 10^th overall in assists per game (8.56). Individually, Nick Alviti is 17^th in the country in caused turnovers per game. Ryan Cornell ranks second in goals against average and is seventh in save percentage while Tommy Burke sits fourth in faceoff winning percentage. McConvey is ninth nationally with 3.33 goals per game and first in total goals.
 
TOURNAMENT HISTORY
Sunday marks Vermont's second straight trip to Maryland in the NCAA Tournament. Last May, the Cats dropped a 17-11 decision to Maryland in their tournament debut in College Park. McConvey scored a team-high four goals and added two assists while JJ Levandowski also added a hat trick.  
 
SCOUTING THE TERRAPINS
Maryland is making its 19^th straight trip to the NCAA Tournament and 44^th in program history. The Terps swept the Big Ten regular season and tournament titles in dominant fashion this season going 14-0 and scoring nearly 19 goals per game. Maryland had six players drafted in Tuesday's Premier Lacrosse League draft including No. 1 overall selection and Tewaaraton Finalist Logan Wisnauskas. He's third in the country with an even 6.0 points per game and is the first Terp with over 300 career points. Brett Makar was named Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year and faceoff specialist Luke Wierman was named Big Ten Specialist of the Year.
 
INSIDE THE SERIES
Wednesday's meeting will be just the 3^rd all-time between Maryland and Vermont with the Terps holding a 2-0 advantage. Prior to last season's NCAA contest, February 2007 saw the only meeting between the two teams and Feifs scored a goal for Maryland in that contest. The Cats did pick up a win over a Big Ten opponent this season – a convincing 16-10 victory over Penn State back in February.