No. 1-ranked Johns Hopkins came away with their eighth straight victory on Saturday thanks in large part to the starting attack trio of junior Bobby Benson, freshman Peter LeSueur, and freshman Kyle Barrie. These three players accounted for ten goals and four assists, leading the Blue Jays to a 14-11 victory over Towson University in front of 3,572 people at Homewood Field.
Benson came into the year as a known power, being named pre-season third team All American, but the other starting attackmen were question marks since they did not have much experience.
Benson, who led the way with four goals and an assist, said, "Pete and Kyle have been stepping up. Their contributions are a big reason why we have been so successful this year."
Both LeSueur, who had career highs of three goals and three assists, and Barrie, who had three goals and added an assist, definitely were a big reason why Hopkins was able to come away with the win to improve to 10-1 on the year, while dropping Towson to 6-5. Towson came out quickly in the first half, taking a 3-0 lead on tallies by sophomore Peyton Chane, junior Collin Meerholtz and junior Kyle Campbell. Hopkins weathered the early storm, and came back to tie the game at 3-3.
Freshman Kyle Harrison opened the scoring for the Blue Jays with 9:25 left in the first quarter. Benson and sophomore Conor Ford scored back to back goals to even the game.
The Tigers then took a brief 4-3 lead when Campbell scored before LeSueur tied the game up again. Barrie put one past Towson's freshman goalie Reed Sothoron to give Hopkins their first lead of the game with 12:58 left in the second quarter.
After the Tigers' senior Brad Reppert tied the game at 5-5 with 5:52 remaining in the first half, the Blue Jays took control of the game scoring eight unanswered goals. LeSueur scored his second goal of the game with 3:19 left in the first half to break the tie and give Hopkins the lead for good.
The turning point in the game was the last minute of the first half. Benson scored with 34 seconds left off an assist from Ford to make it 7-5 before Barrie made it 8-5 on an unassisted goal with only nine seconds left in the first half. The Blue Jays controlled the ensuing face-off and executed a picture perfect fast break, with Ford scoring on a feed from Benson to make it 9-5 with only two seconds remaining before halftime.
"Those goals really gave us a boost going into halftime, as well as momentum to come out in the third quarter and extend our lead," Benson said.
Hopkins continued to control play early in the third quarter. Barrie scored another goal a little over two minutes into the second half, and senior Matt Hanna added his second goal of the season just forty-five seconds later to make it 11-5. Benson then scored his third goal of the game with 10:36 left in the third quarter, and LeSueur added an extra man goal to make it 13-5, giving the Blue Jays their largest lead of the season.
"We played the best lacrosse that we have played all year in the middle of that game. We need to play like that for 60 minutes," said Benson.
Finally, at the 5:02 mark of the third quarter Towson ended the 8-0 run on a goal by sophomore Matt Florio. Towson scored six out of the final seven goals of the game. Junior Hunter Lochte, senior Josh Tankersley, junior Ryan Obloj, Campbell and Chane all scored for Towson in the second half. Benson scored his fourth goal of the game at the 2:25 mark of the third quarter but that would be Hopkins' only goal in the final 23 minutes.
Benson said, "We talked at halftime about letting teams back into games in the fourth quarter when we've had big leads. It happened a little bit on Saturday but they played tough."
Senior Nick Murtha registered 10 saves in goal for the Blue Jays, who were outshot 41-37. However Hopkins showed great hustle by winning the ground ball war 41-30, and also controlling 14 out of 26 face-offs. Freshman Kyle Harrison had a superb game, winning 12 of 16 face-offs, and recovering a career high 11 ground balls.
Johns Hopkins is now 33-1 in its last 34 games in the month of April, and is 29-3 in its last 32 home games. The Blue Jays will close out the regular season at Loyola this Saturday at 1:00 p.m. looking to lock up the number one seed in the NCAA Tournament with a victory. Two of the quarterfinal games of the NCAA Tournament will be played at Homewood Field on Sunday May 19. The Blue Jays should receive a bye and play in one of those games.
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