A little Maryland lacrosse story to hold everyone over until the opening faceoff:

Earlier this month before the regular season finale, someone --- and by someone, I mean goalie Jason Carter --- brought a radar gun to Maryland's practice.

Madness predictably ensued, in the form of a pre-practice competition straight out of an all-star weekend.

The winner? Aussie midfielder Adam Sear, who touched 106 miles per hour.

"I can't explain it," Sear said. "I was on a gun when i was 12 and that's about it. That's the first time I've been on a radar gun for a while. I don't know how credible the radar gun is."

For the sake of full disclosure, this was not in any way planned by coach Dave Cottle.

"It was before practice," Cottle dryly clarified. "It wasn't during practice."

While midfielders like Sear and Dan Groot predictably did well, it didn't necessarily go so well for everyone. Midfielder Will Dalton said a handful of long poles missed the cage altogether in their attempts to light up the gun.

Others had shots that went spectacularly awry.

"Mike Griswold and Zach Hinton, a couple of the D guys tried to pull the Big One and almost hit the wall and the windows [of the team house] a couple times."

Not everyone with a pole struggled. Sophomore Brian Farrell --- arguably the nation's biggest offense threat among long stick midfielder --- zipped a shot at 103 mph.

"I've always seen Farrell as having the hardest shot on the team," Sear said. "During our drills, he'll line up from 15 yards and makes the goal rock like this."

At that, Sear waved his hand back and forth. Not quickly, but the Terrapins' king of the radar gun didn't need to.

--- Patrick Stevens