West Chester’s Luke Wierman, Maryland’s all-time faceoff ace, chases another national title

Possession is everything in lacrosse. You need the ball to score, and the best defense is usually when the ball is in the mesh of your stick rather than trying to scheme to stop an opponent.

That makes Luke Wierman’s position — faceoff specialist — the most important job on the field. The game ebbs and flows based on how the Maryland graduate student from West Chester Henderson performs in the faceoff X.

It’s that part of the job that Wierman likes so much. It’s what makes lacrosse “unique,” he said in advance of this weekend’s NCAA men’s lacrosse Final Four. On Saturday at Lincoln Financial Field, Maryland faces Virginia in one semifinal, with Notre Dame and Denver in the first game. The winners play Monday.

“It could change games so quickly, which is why it’s such a special position,” Wierman said. “Games could be lopsided by who is winning and losing faceoffs, but it can flip like a switch. One quarter, a faceoff guy could adjust and the whole game could flip. It really creates and stops runs throughout the game.”

Take last weekend’s quarterfinal for example. Wierman’s Terrapins, seeded No. 7 in the tournament, fell behind by 3-0 late in the first quarter. Wierman then won a faceoff, cruised down the field, and scored six seconds later.

Then, after Maryland cut Duke’s lead to 5-3, the Blue Devils reeled off two straight goals. A run needed to be stopped, and so Wierman did it again — just six seconds midway through the second quarter. Duke’s run was halted and Maryland cut the deficit to two at halftime.

Wierman’s dominance on draws — he won 20 of his 29 attempts — helped Maryland dominate the second half. The Terrapins outscored Duke by 9-4 in the final two quarters to reach this weekend.

“Luke Wierman is a problem for opponents,” Virginia coach Lars Tiffany said of Maryland’s all-time leader in faceoffs won and ground balls. “He is playing at such a high level.”

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Maryland and Virginia met earlier this season, in mid-March. Wierman was a little banged up. He won just 16 of his 28 draws during a 14-10 loss. It was the first defeat in a two-game losing streak for Maryland, and it’s easy to see how the losses happened: Wierman went 10-for-27 on faceoffs a week later in a 12-11 defeat to Michigan.

“Watching him the last few weeks, he looks like he’s 100% healthy,” Tiffany said. “The Luke Wierman we saw two months ago is different today.”

This weekend offers Wierman a full-circle opportunity. He left Henderson in 2019 after scoring 28 goals and adding 30 assists to go with a 77% faceoff rate in his fourth year playing varsity.

It was in part because of faceoffs that Wierman played for Henderson’s varsity team as a freshman. There was a spot open at the position and Wierman wanted to play right away, so he trained with Mike Lanham, a faceoff specialist at St. Joseph’s University, to try to master the position. It got him on the field and helped him get to college.

Wierman didn’t play as a freshman at Maryland. He then split time as a sophomore and showed flashes of brilliance. As a junior, Wierman really took off. He set program records in faceoffs won (298) and faceoffs taken (451) and had the nation’s second-best faceoff percentage (66.1%). Maryland went undefeated and won the national title in Connecticut.

Two years later, Wierman, 23, has the chance to win a championship at the home of his favorite football team. He has never played at the Linc but spent plenty of birthdays (May 20) watching lacrosse there, as the stadium has hosted championships in the past. He also attended some of his cousin’s games with Penn at Franklin Field.

Ending his career with another championship, this time at the Linc, “would be amazing,” Wierman said. “It’s somewhere I always wanted to play.”

Wierman is tied for third in Division I lacrosse in faceoff percentage (62%).

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Wierman didn’t intend to go to Maryland. He was set to attend Fairfield University, but coach Andy Copelan stepped down at the Connecticut school before Wierman got to campus. It was Copelan who told Maryland coach John Tillman that he had a guy to help fill Maryland’s need for a faceoff specialist.

“Obviously things worked out,” Tillman said. “Luke has been just so much more than we could have asked for.”

This weekend could bring a finality to competitive lacrosse for Wierman. He was selected No. 25 in the Premier Lacrosse League draft by Denver, but Wierman said he’s not solely focusing on playing professionally.

He’ll take the summer to work out, play, and train the next generation of faceoff aces at one of the eight locations of the Faceoff Factory, and then probably try to put his two degrees — undergraduate in criminology and criminal justice, master’s in technology entrepreneurship and corporate innovation — to work.

Wierman said the looming end to it all is not something he has paid much attention to.

“None of that has really set in yet,” he said. “I’ve been doing this for five years now and my days have looked pretty much the same. I think when it’s all over, I’ll realize what’s gone.”

Chances are, Maryland will, too.