October 12, 2023 - Sports Guide

The University of Maryland’s Independent Student Newspaper

the diamondback

Sports guide

2023

2

Table of contents

3: Patricie Mackova: Golf 4: Volleyball drills 5: Tyrese chambers: football 6: Volleyball highlights 7: field hockey legacy

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Golf

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Patricie Mackova found success and a new home with Maryland women’s golf

By Michael Howes | Sports Reporter No one told Patricie Mackova she could be recruited for college golf. The two-time First Team All-Big Ten Czech golfer only learned about the opportunity when her friend signed with the University of Texas at Austin, opening her to the world of college athletics.

Mackova, now a senior and the Terps’ most talented golfer, hopes to bring the program to national relevancy. That wasn’t always the plan.

Mackova grew up more than 4,000 miles away in Prague, Czech Republic, playing tennis and struggling immensely with the game. As she searched for a new sport, her grandfather, Veroslav, took her to a nearby golf course.

Mackova recalled practicing with coaches from the local academy and playing short competitions against her grandfather, where the winner would be crowned “world champion.”

She eventually started playing for youth golf organization U.S. Kids Golf and qualified for European championships, making it to South Carolina for the World Championships by the time she was 11. As her skills developed, so did her investment in the sport.

“It was a big deal for me,” Mackova said. “Because I was getting better and better, I feel like I was more and more into it.”

She then participated in U18 European team championship events, where coaches from the United States often scouted overseas talent. It was there that Mackova’s friend and recent Longhorns commit Sára Kouskova told her about the potential to play golf in college.

Mackova soon got in contact with then-Terps coach Diana Cantú, who offered her a full-ride scholarship to Maryland.

“She had a ton of potential,” said current coach Kelly Hovland, who was an assistant coach under Cantú from 2019-21. “Just physically as a 16, 17-year-old kid, [she] had a lot of the attributes we’re looking for in terms of long hitter, great iron player, but we knew she had to develop.”

Mackova had to make her decision without visiting Maryland’s campus while also considering offers from schools like Oklahoma State and Kent State. She ultimately chose the Terps in June 2019 and made her first visit to College Park that September, touring the facilities and meeting coaches and advisors.

It was a smooth transition, Mackova said. Even though her English was weaker back then, she said she quickly fit in and befriended her teammates, who never said anything negative about her accent or status as an international student.

When the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the fall

season of her freshman campaign, Mackova and her teammates further bonded while quarantined.

“We got very close [in] the first year because we were living together right away,” graduate student and golfer Maria Vittoria Corbi said. “It was definitely a hard semester with all the rules and restrictions so we definitely helped each other out.”

Mackova had the option to redshirt the spring season and gain an extra year of eligibility, but declined the offer, opting instead to play that year with faith that the Terps would reach nationals. She appeared in four events that season and finished the year with a scoring average of 74, the fourth-best on the team as Maryland finished 21st of 24 teams in the NCAA Championship.

As a sophomore, Mackova placed second among the Terps at the Big Ten Championship with a score of 215 and earned an individual bid to the NCAA Regionals, where she placed 25th overall with a score of 222. Mackova finished the season with a team-best 72.5 average score through 36 rounds, the fourth-best mark in Maryland history.

She got even better as a junior, notching the best average score in school history and finishing as the No. 29 player in the country. Hovland credits Mackova’s success to honing in on her wedge game and refining her mentality.

“We’ve really been able to attack her wedge game in a lot of different technical ways and strategic ways that have given her just a ton of opportunities on par fives and made her one of the best,” she said.

Mackova said she also started seeing herself as one of the best players in the country, or even one of the best players in the world.

Despite the heights she’s reached, Mackova still feels the urge for more. She remains dissatisfied with the end of last season where the Terps missed the cutoff to nationals by three shots. Mackova partially blamed herself for the result as she shot nine over par.

She hopes to get another shot this year, the last chapter in a ride that’s seen her develop in the sport she loves and create a home for herself in College Park.

“College golf is so fun. You get to travel with your friends, everything is fun about it and it’s not like this when I play back home,” Mackova said. “I think we can make it to nationals so easily … I’m excited about this year and I hope I will end my career in Maryland [on] a good note.”

Patricie mackova, a senior golfer at the University of Maryland, swings during practice on Sept. 7, 2023. (kaya bogot/the diamondback)

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Volleyball

Inside the new drill helping Maryland volleyball prepare for pressure

By Tanner Malinowski | Sports Reporter Maryland volleyball couldn’t pull away from Princeton in the first set of Saturday’s match at the Maryland Tournament in College Park. The Tigers overcame the Terps’ scoring runs and pulled ahead as the set approached its summit.

Princeton remained efficient, belting six more kills to keep the pressure on Maryland. But the Terps were flawless down the stretch. Maryland outclassed the Tigers’ offense with an error-free, eight-putaway performance. The team’s defense grabbed a critical point on Eva Rohrbach and Laila Ivey’s combined block late in the set. Rohrbach’s spike two points later sealed the 25-23 win.

The Terps earned their victory. Rohrbach, Ivey and Sam Csire supplied most of Maryland’s scoring throughout the sequence, but a key contributor to the Terps’ late set success watched from the sidelines.

Assistant coach Ryan Ammerman has installed a variety of new strategies within the team during his first season at Maryland, including a practice drill designed to condition the Terps physically and mentally for the pivotal late stages of hard-fought sets like the one they won Saturday.

“Good teams aren’t gonna lose.

You’re gonna have to beat them.”

- Ryan Ammerman

“And so after 20 [points], they’re not gonna miss a serve or hit the ball out of bounds. They’re gonna make the serve, they’re gonna hit a good shot, and you have to execute, so we’re working on winning our way out of that,” Ammerman said.

The drill is a six-versus-six affair, just like a live game.

The teams are immediately thrust into a late-set situation with the score tied or separated by a few points.

An unforced error — hitting the ball out of bounds or into the net — does not award the other team a point.

Instead, the team that committed the miscue has its score reset. The game doesn’t end until one team reaches 25.

The drill pushes players to overcome their fear of committing an error. It develops their confidence to be aggressive and smart in high-leverage situations. The ultimate challenge for both teams is to strike a balance between playing too passively or too recklessly.

“If you go fast, it burns you out.

If you go slow, it burns you out.

There’s no way of beating it. You just gotta go do it.”

- Coach Adam Hughes

Ammerman said the drill, which he learned from Jim Miret, the coach at Front Range Volleyball Club in Meridian, Colorado, is the closest way to simulate a match’s duress in practice. The drill is all about “learning to play one point at a time,” Ammerman said.

With no room for error for either team, it is common for the score to reset multiple times. Some games have lasted 45 minutes, according to senior pin hitter Samantha Schnitta. The drill sometimes frustrates players, Acevedo said, but maturity often prevails.

“I think some of my favorite moments are when one of our players [at the] end of the game makes an error and our setters are giving them the ball again because that’s how they’re going to build trust.”

- Coach Becca Acevedo

Ammerman’s drill has paid dividends on the court for Maryland so far this season. The Terps have won 13 of 22 sets decided by five points or fewer.

The drill forces the Terps to be smart and intentional, Csire said — an encouraging trend ahead of the team’s matches on Friday and Saturday at the Hilton Garden Inn Florida Gulf Coast University Classic in Fort Myers, Florida.

“Especially when … the crowd is crazy [and] the team’s playing really well, it adds a lot more pressure. Doing that in practice, it allows you to get used to it, it allows you to adapt to it and to just be confident.”

- Sam Csire

Maryland volleyball dives for the ball during its 3-2 win over Minnesota on Oct. 6, 2023. (Eric Robinson/the diamondback)

football

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Hardships defined Tyrese Chambers’ youth.

He didn’t let them shape his future.

By Taylor Lyons | Sports Editor Tyrese Chambers has had a long road back to Maryland.

Football has always been the force guiding the Baltimore native away from his home state and across the country. The sport, along with his faith, kept Chambers intact throughout his young life, even as he worked to overcome a lack of recruiting interest from colleges and a number of hardships growing up.

Now, Chambers’ winding football journey, which included stops at junior colleges in Texas and Kansas before stints with Sacred Heart and FIU, has finally brought him home. This year, he’s the oldest of Maryland football’s receivers and has a chance to shine the brightest among them in his final college football season.

“My whole life, I had to fight and battle,” Chambers said. “God blesses those who support others. It’s about being a good teammate, showing love, making sure you’re doing everything you’re supposed to do.

That’s what I’ve been doing everywhere I’ve been.”

The wide receiver didn’t always think he’d return to his home state.

Chambers’ mother, Brenda Williams, raised him as a single mom. Both his father and brothers were not around, he said, which meant Chambers took on a big role in helping his family at an early age.

Providing for his mother and two sisters was Chambers’ main motivation, Williams said.

“He wanted to be the protector, the older brother, the father figure,” Williams said.

“That’s when he changed himself. He started getting better grades, he started pushing harder.”

Chambers was determined to leave Baltimore, in part, because of the violence he witnessed there. When he was 12, Chambers watched police shoot his uncle on an East Baltimore street. His uncle survived, but spent a year in the hospital.

Chambers had to grow up early so he could take care of himself and his family, he said.

He made an effort to avoid the circumstances that negatively impacted the people around him.

“Seeing so much failure around me, seeing people fail, I learned from other people’s mistakes,” Chambers said.

“I knew what I didn’t want to be like.”

Williams sought counseling and therapy for her son to help him navigate his trauma.

Most programs had little impact, but the strength of his faith helped the most.

Chambers leaned on his faith more after his uncle’s shooting, and it still shapes who he tries to be today. Now at Maryland, Chambers and his teammates’ conversations outside of football often center around the Bible.

Back in high school, his faith helped him prevent the lack of interest and opportunities to discourage him.

Chambers blossomed into one of the best receivers in Maryland the next season and followed it up with an even more dominant senior year.

Chambers’ highlights are ingrained in O’Neal’s memory. One standout moment, O’Neal said, was Chambers’ 214 yard, four-touchdown performance in a win at Tuscarora.

The coach also remembers when Chambers scored all three of Poly’s touchdowns in its annual rivalry game with Baltimore City College.

Tyrese Chambers runs onto the field during its 44-17 win against Indiana on Sept. 30, 2023. (Autumn Hengen/the diamondback) “God has always been my therapist,” he said. “He has changed my trajectory of how I see things, how I view things. I turned to God when I was a kid. The stuff that I’ve been through in my life, I always knew that God was gonna find a way for me, and I just trusted him.”

Chambers joined Baltimore Polytechnic Institute’s varsity football squad in just 10th grade with a reputation as one of the city’s best athletes. Chambers felt he was ready to contribute immediately, but opportunities on the field eluded the receiver.

He voiced his frustrations after his sophomore season.

“I’m not sitting back no more,” Poly coach Marquise O’Neal recalled Chambers saying.

“I want the ball.”

His confidence sped up his meteoric rise from a bench player to one of Maryland’s premier talents.

“It wasn’t an arrogance,” O’Neal said.

“He wasn’t overstepping. He just wanted you to know that he’s open if you wanna throw him the ball.”

As a senior, he totaled 1,175 yards and 17 touchdowns and was named first team All-State.

“I left that school a legend,” Chambers said.

But Division I programs never noticed.

Williams said Poly’s coaches and advisers could have done better at putting her son in front of recruiters. O’Neal and Chambers are still unsure why no one at the Division I level wanted him, but he refused to let it disrupt his path out of Baltimore.

The lack of high-profile offers led Chambers to play at two junior colleges, one in Texas and then Kansas. From there, he transferred to Sacred Heart, FIU and now Maryland, where he wears the No. 0 jersey to represent the number of schools originally interested in his talents.

“You gotta be different to make it out of junior college,” Chambers said. “For some reason, I was never nobody’s first option …

Nothing was ever given to me.”

His short stint in Texas wasn’t without its own challenges. Chambers coordinated with neighbors and family back in Baltimore to ensure his mother had food and basic necessities. He nearly dropped out to return and help his mother, but she convinced him not to.

Williams, who said she’s only ever missed three of Chambers’ games, flew to Florida to watch his first game at FIU. It was the start of a historic year, one where he became the program’s all-time leader in receiving yards in a season.

Now, Williams’ trip to watch Chambers is just a short drive south. He always wanted to play at Maryland. Making it easy for her to watch was a big reason why.

Chambers’ long journey out of the city prepared him for a new position: a leader and role model for Baltimore’s youth, who he teaches football and offers an escape to at camps.

It’s a role Williams sees Chambers take pride in. The camps offer children from his hometown a glimpse into a future that could await them.

“I see him speak to these kids,” Williams said, “and it leaves them hope.”

Chambers was once in their place, an East Baltimore kid searching for a way out. His dream, which was born in that neighborhood, has been achieved. Now, Chambers wants more.

“The ones who make it out stand out the most,” Chambers said. “Everybody in Baltimore’s been through a lot of stuff. You can take it and use it for good, or you can take it and use it for bad. The ones who take it for good, they’re very impactful in this world.”

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Volleyball

Maryland Volleyball celebrates a 3-2 win over Minnesota on Oct. 6, 2023. (eric robinson/the diamondback)

Laila Ivey prepares to hit against Michigan on Sept. 24, 2023. (rohan pandit/the diamondback)

Field Hockey

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Cousins Josie Hollamon, Maci Bradford continue family legacy with Maryland field hockey

By Holliday Woodard | Sports Reporter

The pair of freshmen are already making an impact for the Terps with four combined goals.

The first call Josie Hollamon made when she committed to Maryland field hockey was to her cousin, Maci Bradford.

The two Delaware natives had been teammates since they were 4 years old. A week after Hollamon committed, Bradford ensured their connection would continue and also picked the Terps.

They’re part of a family built on winning championships across multiple sports and generations.

A program with eight national titles fits Hollamon and Bradford’s lineage.

College Park is the latest destination for the pair on an intertwined journey that they began as children. They participated in youth hockey camps together and played on the same high school, club and national teams.

Now, they’re already contributing to the Terps as freshmen. Hollamon has two goals in her last three games, and Bradford has two goals with four assists this season.

Hollamon jokes she was born with a stick in her hand.

Bradford and Hollamon’s mothers are sisters who played field hockey together at Delaware.

They own Shore Byrds Field Hockey — the club Hollamon and Bradford played for growing up — and Hollamon’s mother is in the Blue Hens’ Hall of Fame.

The family’s field hockey ties kept many dinner conversations confined to the sport. Familial support and coaching came from the same source, with both pushing the cousins to work as hard as possible. “[My mom is] the reason that I’m good,” Bradford said. “She was my club coach. My aunt was my high school coach. So they’re definitely the two people and the reason that I’m here today and this successful.”

Getting hounded by coaches who happened to be their mothers was an adjustment for the cousins. But each challenge brought the mothers and daughters — and coaches and players — closer together.

“My mom coaching me, I couldn’t ask for anything else,” Hollamon said. “You’re always held accountable no matter what. I think that’s what makes me the player I am today.”

Before joining Maryland, both players had competed at advanced levels on the U-16 and U-18 national team together. Delmar High School won five state championships with Hollamon and Brad-

ford at the helm.

Their family isn’t new to winning state championships. Their grandfather was a state champion basketball coach, while Hollamon’s dad made the state championship coaching baseball.

Anything less than that title was not okay, according to Hollamon.

“Our whole family is just a field hockey family,” Bradford said. “As many people from our family that can make it to our games, they are going to be here.”

They’ve brought their fandom and support to College Park. Hollamon and Bradford’s family host tailgates for some home games, stocked with buffalo chicken dip and cheeseburgers, which the cousins get to enjoy after games. Hollamon and Bradford’s retired grandparents are almost always in attendance, even making the trip to

some away games.

The family affair is set to continue. Hollamon’s younger sister, Jordyn, is also committed to Maryland.

The freshmen are neighbors in Pyon-Chen Hall.

They frequent the nearby Yahentamitsi Dining Hall, where Hollamon loves a side salad with grilled cheese and Bradford regularly goes for chicken with mashed potatoes.

On the pitch, their chemistry shines. They play opposite positions — Hollamon on defense and Bradford in attack. Still, the two always hope to create opportunities for the other to succeed.

“I can go to her with anything,” Hollamon said.

“If I’m struggling or if I’m happy … Knowing that I have someone so close to me, literally right next door. I wouldn’t want it any other way.”

Maci Bradford fights for the ball during Maryland field hockey’s 3-1 win over Yale on Sept. 10, 2023. (eric robinson/the diamondback)