Maryland's Max Schmidt poses (slight) injury concern
When No. 3 Maryland opened the season last Saturday against Detroit Mercy, Max Schmidt was not in his customary starter’s position.
The senior defenseman missed some time in the preseason due to an unspecified injury, and the coaching staff elected to start senior Shane Hall to run with seniors Brett Schmidt and Ryder Bohlander on the first defense.
“Max had missed a little bit of time early in the season, and we felt like it was a great reward [for Hall],” coach John Tillman said. “Shane had never started a game before, and it was a terrific opportunity for him to look back and say, ‘I got a chance to start.’ And I thought that was great for him.”
Tillman was non-committal about whether Max Schmidt, who registered 39 ground balls and 21 caused turnovers last season, would come off the bench again this Saturday against No. 14 Georgetown.
“We have confidence in all those guys,” Tillman said. “So we’ll see how it goes. But we’re going to use them all. So how we start and how we finish are two different things. But as the game [against Detroit Mercy] went on, Max played more and more. So if we were worried about him being seriously injured, we wouldn’t have played him at all.”
Tillman praised two more players who made their debuts as starters.
Goalkeeper Niko Amato played more than 47 minutes, surrendering just three goals and making three saves to earn the victory. And although Tillman said his assessment of Amato is incomplete, he said the redshirt freshman fared well.
“I thought he did fine,” Tillman said. “He didn’t see a lot of action in terms of multiple shots to get into a rhythm, but I thought just him getting in there, he showed pretty good poise, and he managed the game pretty well, cleared the ball well.”
Sophomore Curtis Holmes won 17-of-21 faceoffs and showed flashes of the determination and toughness that his older brother Bryn seemed to have in droves as a faceoff specialist for the Terps in the last three years.
“We have a lot of confidence in Curtis,” Tillman said. “He’s not a big-name guy – not yet – and he hasn’t done it enough to merit being with some of those big-name guys. He’s still establishing himself.”
