Parents weekend and the presence of Big Ten Network drew a crowd of 1,937 out to McClimon Soccer Complex Sunday afternoon to watch the Wisconsin men’s soccer team take on the 11th ranked Maryland Terrapins.

Despite the impressive crowd, Maryland took care of business against the struggling Badgers, winning 4-1.

The scoring was quick and often in the first half, with the Terrapins taking an early 2-0 lead in the first six minutes. The talented Terrapin freshman Sebastian Elney and Mael Corboz both notched goals from outside the box, putting Wisconsin keeper Adrian Remeniuk on his heels for much of the half.

The Badgers would shrink the gap with a goal by forward Tom Barlow in the 8th minute before Maryland regained their two goal advantage with an easy goal in the 28th. Maryland controlled possession for the majority of the half and deflated much of the energy in the crowd and the team going into halftime. The goal by Barlow was the first the team has scored at home this season as well as Barlow’s first goal of the year.

“Our defense really fell apart after those first two goals,” Barlow said. “It was good to get a goal and get some confidence but we really need to clean up some things.”

Barlow added that he can move forward much more focused now that he doesn’t have to be worrying about scoring his first goal after being the team’s leading scorer the year before.

Little changed in the second half, however, with Maryland’s Elney putting in his second goal, sending in an impressive header only five minutes in. Neither team could find many open opportunities following the early strike, which is all Maryland would need to close the comfortable win.

“This was a reality check,” senior midfielder Drew Conner said. “We got exposed in a lot of areas, and we know what we need to do in training going forward. Maryland is a good team, but we don’t think they are that many goals better than us.”

With a much different pace from the Badgers’ last game against SIUE, the battle with Maryland was a physical shootout from the beginning. Opposed to five shots the game before, the Badgers tallied nine on Sunday.

“Our goal going in was definitely to win some of those knockdown balls and I thought we did a decent job getting those shots after those first two goals,” Barlow said. “But they definitely had some tall guys and that was tough to do.”

The 1995 Wisconsin men’s soccer national championship team was honored to a standing ovation from the large crowd of almost 2,000 (Conner said it was the largest home crowd he’d seen in his four seasons at Wisconsin). The returning players and coaches experienced the peak of the program, winning the only national championship in the men’s soccer history at UW.