Last night more than 7,000 people packed Byrd Stadium to watch the ninth ranked Midshipmen take on the third ranked Terrapins. Unfortunately for those in attendance, the fireworks that went off during the national anthem were the most exciting part of the game. Maryland delivered an atrocious first half offensive performance. They were not helped by the absence of Travis Reed. Brett Weis started in Reed's place and played a very forgettable game outside of ringing a shot off the post in the first quarter. Both defenses played well but neither offense was playing overly aggressive. Both teams had a few opportunities but both struggled to get shots on goal. Navy's Pat Moran tallied the only goal of the quarter. Things started to come apart for the Terps during the second quarter. Joe Lennon opened the scoring with a goal that took a strange bounce that fooled Brian Phipps. After Joe Cinosky was sent to the penalty box, Tim Paul widened the lead with a man-up goal. Then after another slow possession, Navy struck again with a goal from Greg Clement. Tim Paul capped off Navy's scoring with another goal just before halftime. It is blatant why Navy was able to dominate the first half with their boring offense. The Midshipmen picked up 20 ground balls to Maryland's 10. Navy also won five of seven face-offs and fired 18 shots. They were able to take Maryland's offense out of the game by having really long possessions. When a team that plays at such a slow pace on the offensive end, every ground ball and face-off is extremely important. The Maryland team that came out in the first half was a far cry from the one that knocked off Virginia six days before. Sure not having Travis Reed on the field is not going to help, but there are plenty of players on the team who have the same knack for finding the back of the net. At the start of the third quarter Maryland finally started to play a little more aggressively. After losing the opening face-off, Bryn Holmes knocked the ball loose from a Navy player and the Terps took possession. It is this style of play that was nonexistent for Maryland in the first half. Despite this Maryland still struggled for most of the third quarter. It seemed as if the team was not on the same page. This was most evident when Scott Tompkins and Rob Morrison collided when they both tried to catch a pass. The 41 minute goalless odyssey ended when Ryan Young found Drew Evens who put the Terps on the board. Maryland struck again before the end of the third with a man-up goal from Dan Groot off a nice look from behind the goal by Max Ritz. The Terps stepped up their aggressiveness even more in the fourth quarter. They began to start getting a lot more ground balls which helped them to keep the ball on the offensive side longer then they had all game. Max Ritz closed the gap to two with nine and a half minutes to go. Then the lead was cut to one after a scrum near the restraining box which resulted in Ryan Young finding a wide open Grant Catalino who faked out Navy goalkeeper Tommy Phelan. Maryland had a few opportunities to complete the comeback but could not do it. The Terps called timeout with 1:14 remaining. Whatever plan was devised during the break was not executed because Dan Groot threw a pass out of bounds before any play could be run. Navy was not able to run out the clock when they got the ball back. Jason Carter and Joe Cinosky forced a turnover and Maryland pressed up the field but failed to get a shot off. Navy picked up a ground ball with three seconds left and secured the win. Maryland's horrible offensive performance for the first 41 minutes is obviously what cost them this game. At points they looked like an average high school team. They were dropping passes and standing around on offense. The Terps need to get it together when they face Johns Hopkins on the road next Saturday.