Yesterday, the third quarter ended between the Maryland girls’s lacrosse crew and host Syracuse.
On the time of the horn, Maryland had an influence play due to a two-minute penalty on Syracuse. A latest guidelines change within the girls’s recreation would usually give the crew in possession of the ball on the finish of the primary or third quarter possession of the ball. Its been like this for years within the males’s recreation, however is comparatively new for the ladies.
Solely on this scenario, Maryland had executed a go that had not been accomplished on the time the horn sounded, which price the Terrapins a free clear from the middle dot to start out the fourth quarter.
It might have led to catastrophe, given the truth that the sport was tied 7-7 at three-quarter time, and each possession within the fourth quarter, amongst two Prime 10 groups, would have been extra-critical.
Nonetheless, Maryland was in a position to win the draw to start out the fourth.
And to the Terrapins’ credit score, they discovered their lesson from this rule subtlety when Syracuse took a green-card penalty within the closing seconds of the primary extra time interval. Maryland took no probabilities and ran away from the closest defender, retaining the ball till the clock expired.
That gave Maryland the ball on a free clear for the second extra time interval, and Hannah Leubecker would rating 45 seconds into the second additional interval, nonetheless on the ability play.
As the foundations of males’s and girls’s lacrosse have been converging because the 2000s, you’re seeing a whole lot of males’s guidelines within the girls’s recreation, resembling free motion, exhausting boundaries, and the awarding of possession initially of 1 / 4 to the crew in clear possession throughout an influence play.
It’s the worth of change.