Moments after he came out of surgery, Farrell’s father, Mike, a former Maryland All-America, emerged with two thumbs up, letting his son know that the Terps had won.

Saturday afternoon in the Konika Minolta Face-Off Classic matchup with Duke, Farrell was back on the field and healthy. Fittingly, Farrell made a key play in overtime to lift Maryland to an 11-10 victory.

Scooping a loose ball off the turf in the Duke end, Farrell carried it up field, passed to Dean Hart, who found Grant Catalino open on the wing for the winning goal, triggering a wild dog-pile celebration on the field as Maryland improved to 3-0.

“It’s awesome, now, so much fun, playing in Ravens Stadium, with these guys,” said Farrell, whose 2009 season was wiped out when he had major complications from a rib injury.

The redshirt junior helped propel an efficient, fast-breaking Maryland offense, which converted 11 of 29 shots. Junior Catalino (five goals, one assist), senior Will Yeatman (two goals), and junior Ryan Young (one goal, two assists) were the leaders.

“Brian creates so many mismatches, so many fastbreaks,” said Catalino. “Having him back this year is awesome.”

The key play was set up by Maryland senior Bryn Holmes, who had a rough day at the faceoff X (4 of 12), but made a huge hit in overtime, flashing across the crease to dislodge the ball from a Duke attackman, before Farrell picked it up.

“Bryn Holmes is the toughest kid I’ve ever been around,” said Maryland coach Dave Cottle. “He’s 165 pounds. We ask him to play short-stick [midfield], faceoffs, man-down [defense], everything. That kid’s just a warrior.”

The Terps led most of the way an appeared on their way to routine victory before Duke (2-2) rallied for three goals in the final 4:22 of regulation. Maryland tried to sit on its late lead, even stalling when it was in a man-up situation.

“Fourth quarter, we were kind of holding on a little bit,” said Cottle. “We made some bad plays in the last two minutes.”

One of those came from Catalino, who had a bad pass that was picked off by Duke sophomore midfielder Justin Turri with 47 seconds left. With 13 seconds left, Turri (two assists) passed to senior Will McKee, who had curled from behind the goal, and scored to send the game into overtime.

“I didn’t feel like I, personally, had to redeem myself,” said Catalino. “We’re a really tight team and I have confidence in our defense. I thought we’d get the ball back and stick it.”

Maryland won on a day that it took just 8 of 25 faceoffs, lost the ground ball battle, 42-33, and were out-shot 37-29.

Maryland had a 4-2 lead early in the second period before Duke reeled off three straight goals, including a pair by junior Zach Howell (4 goals). But the Terps answered with a goal from Catalino and a man-up goal with a trick play, Young, flipping the ball to himself and feeding Yeatman, who made it 6-5.

Senior goalie Brian Phipps (15 saves) ended the half by making two saves from point blank range in the final 10 seconds.

“We have a fourth-year starter as a senior and they have a freshman (Dan Wigrizer),” said Cottle. “We should win the goalie matchup.”

Maryland took the lead, 8-7, with a big shot from freshman John Haus. When Catalino followed with a goal and junior Travis Reed jumped on a failure by the Duke defense to clear and scored early in the fourth quarter, the Terps were up 10-7.

But bottling up the Duke attack — which includes All-Americans Max Quinzani (three goals) and Ned Crotty (one goal, four assists) – isn’t easy, even with star defender, Farrell, back in the lineup.

“Brian Farrell, you see what we missed [last year],” said Cottle. “That ground ball at the end, we don’t have anybody who can pick that up.”

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