When Maryland and Georgetown men’s lacrosse face off in the NCAA Tournament quarterfinals in Annapolis on May 18, it’ll be a family affair.

For the Kelly family, that is.

Maryland fifth-year attackman Daniel Kelly and Georgetown sophomore attackman Shuey Kelly are part of a decorated lacrosse family. Father Bryan played at North Carolina and is now the wildly successful head coach at Calvert Hall. Brothers Jacob and Timmy followed their dad’s footsteps and played at North Carolina. And that’s just the start of it .

The Kelly family will have to figure out how to best support Daniel and Shuey in Annapolis, but both players will be focused on the task at hand.

“It’s definitely a weird spot to be in, but I’m thankful for the opportunity,” Daniel said on Glenn Clark Radio May 14. “It’s harder on [my family] than it is on me playing and my younger brother Shuey for Georgetown. We’ve got a job to do, but they’ll figure out the T-shirts and what they want to wear.”

Maryland (12-3 overall) opened its NCAA Tournament run with a 13-5 win against Air Force and now needs three more wins for its second national championship in four years. The Terps are also seeking their fourth trip to the national title game in five years.

Daniel Kelly was part of the 2022 team that won it all but didn’t make any starts and only scored six goals that year. This year, Kelly has scored 30 goals and dished out nine assists. The 6-foot-1, 185-pound attackman has had multi-goal efforts in 11 of Maryland’s 15 games.

“I was fortunate enough to be a part of the 2022 team,” Kelly said. “That was an awesome run. I learned a lot of impactful things for my career from those guys, but being in the role I’ve been in the past three years and playing way more on attack and doing those things, it would definitely mean a ton to me and I know the rest of the guys that were on that team but in a smaller role. It would definitely mean a lot.”

One major difference between the 2022 Terps and this year’s iteration can be immediately seen on the stat sheet. The 2022 squad scored a whopping 318 goals on the season led by program legend Logan Wisnauskas, who scored 61 goals and dished out 42 assists. Three other players scored more than 30 goals.

This year’s team has leaned on its defense. Maryland is third in the country in goals allowed (7.93 per game) behind veteran goalie Logan McNaney . The Terps have spread the load around on the offensive side, with six Terps scoring double-digit goals.

“It’s a fun style of lacrosse to play, I can tell you that,” Kelly said. “Any day it can be someone different on our offense. That’s what you want to be a part of. We talk about it all the time — the defense will give you the answers and how they’re playing. You just take what they give you.”

Georgetown (12-4 overall) is 10th in the country in goals allowed (9.12) and is surely focused on slowing down Kelly.

“We have a good idea of what teams are going to do,” Kelly said. “The coaches put together a great game plan and we try to follow it as best as we can, but you never know until you’re out there and how they’re going to play things. We try to go over every single scenario of what could happen and kind of just based off what we’re seeing possession in and possession out and try to do our best to counter that stuff.”