The Hopkins men’s lacrosse team, coming off an 18-5 drubbing of the nationally-ranked Delaware, continued the trend this weekend with a 16-6 onslaught of Siena in the team’s first affair at Homewood Field. The Saints had no answers for JHU’s midfielders and attackmen, who scored goals at will easily and often.
Led by senior attackman and co-captain Chris Boland and sophomore midfielder John Greeley, who each scored three times and added two assists, the Jays had nine different players find the back of the net, improving the ninth-ranked Jays to 3-0 on the season. The Saints fall to 1-2.
Hopkins kicked off the goal scoring early. Just 36 seconds in, freshman midfielder Rob Guida made a nice cut to beat his man, and Boland found him next to the net for an easy goal.
In one of the few instances where the Siena attack appeared organized, the Saints answered with an extra-man goal 30 seconds later to tie the game at 1-1.
The rest of the quarter belonged to the Jays, more specifically Boland. He had a natural hat trick to end the quarter, and the Jays entered the second quarter up 4-1.
The Saints were outshot 15-2 in the first quarter, and had the exceptional play of goalie Tom Morr to thank for keeping the game under control early on. In the first quarter alone, Morr had six saves. His luck did not last, though, as he failed to make another save in the game and was pulled at halftime.
Greeley and fellow sophomore midfielder John Ranagan got things going in the second quarter, ably power-dodging defenders and beating Morr left and right.
With senior midfielder Matt Dolente dominating face-offs all day, the Siena offense was barely able to touch the ball, and when they did, their sloppy, uncoordinated attack had no shot against the relentless and aggressive defensive unit of sophomores Tucker Durkin, Chris Lightner and freshman Jack Reilly.
The unit forced turnovers, scooped up ground balls and forced Siena attackmen to take poor, savable shots on sophomore goalie Pierce Bassett who had 12 saves on the day.
Bassett, though, refused to take credit for his high level of play.
“We had a good game plan going in,” he said. “Our defenders and defensive middies played at a high level, forcing outside and weak-hand shots, shots I can see. Credit goes to the people in front of me today.”
To close out the half, senior attackman and co-captain Kyle Wharton found himself open with the ball, perfect for a sharp feed to wide-open sophomore Zach Palmer for an easy goal. Wharton had a career-high three assists.
The second half told a similar story. The Jay offense continued to roll, Dolente continued to win face-offs and the defense stymied what few scoring chances the Saints had.
The Jays opened up the second half with five goals, allowing Siena to only score once. Hopkins needed just two minutes to get the goal-scoring started again, as sophomore midfielder Chase Winter scored his first career goal as a Jay.
“It feels great to get that pressure off my back,” said Winter. “Boland hit me with a great pass, and I was able to put it at the goalie’s feet.”
Adding to the scoring spree in the third was Greeley (twice), Dolente and freshman midfielder Eric Ruhl. With 10:32 to play, Dolente won the face-off, scooped up the ball, ran down the field and beat goalie Bill Kelly for his first of the season. Ruhl scored an unassisted goal on a top-right rip that pushed the Jays lead to 12-3.
For the final 23:30 of the game, Hopkins outscored the Saints 4-3, as Guida, Ranagan and Palmer all scored their second goals of the day, with freshman midfielder Rex Sanders scoring his first career goal.
After successfully killing a two-man down situation and allowing only four goals on the day, Bassett was pulled for junior Steven Burke at the beginning of the fourth quarter. When the buzzer sounded, the Jays walked off the field with a 16-6 win.
Saturday’s stat-book was littered with Hopkins dominance. The Jays dominated the shot count 48-24, scooped up almost twice as many ground balls (37-19) and won twice as many face-offs (16-8). Hopkins successfully cleared the ball 15 times in 17 attempts, while the Saints were a mediocre 16-22.
The Jays got huge production from their first attack unit and first midfield unit. Boland, Palmer and Wharton combined for five goals and five assists, while Greeley, Ranagan and Guida added seven goals and two assists.
“It felt great to be able to contribute today,” said Guida of his two goals.
In their toughest game yet this season, the Jays welcome the nationally-ranked Princeton Tigers down to Homewood Field on Saturday March 5th for their 81st meeting all time. Face-off is scheduled for 1:00 p.m.
