Terps Taking On The World

This year as a been one of worldwide travel for multiple Terrapin teams. 

Softball went to Mexico at the start of its season, men’s soccer traveled to Portugal in March, volleyball ventured to Europe in May, and men’s basketball will embark on a summer trip to Italy. 

For the teams that have had the opportunity to travel internationally together, it has proved to be an invaluable experience both in terms of team bonding as well as in terms of experiencing new cultures that most would probably not experience otherwise.

“Traveling through the U.S. is exciting and fun, but traveling outside the country is a whole different thing,” softball senior outfielder Campbell Kline said. “It’s not something that a lot of people get to experience, especially doing it with the sport that they love. It was a really unique experience for us.”

While softball used their trip to Mexico as a way to kick its season off, most teams do their travel in the offseason, setting aside extended time for the student-athletes to fully immerse themselves in different cultures. 

Such was the case with men’s soccer, which spent 10 days in Portugal, making stops in both Porto and Lisbon. The team played three exhibition games against talented Portuguese squads and also spent days walking around the different towns and taking in the cultures. A highlight for all the guys was watching two professional soccer games, especially the Euro 2024 qualifying match between Portugal and Liechtenstein in which Cristiano Ronaldo scored two goals. 

“The further away we get from the trip, the more often we speak about it, and how amazing it was and all the memories we created,” senior defender Alex Nitzl said of the team’s trip. “There’s so many small moments you don’t fully appreciate while you’re there, but once you come back it’s like ‘Oh my God, we did this cool thing and this other cool thing.’”