School is officially back in session! It’s been a couple of weeks since our first day of classes, and so the fall season of Hopkins sports are well underway. The 2024-25 was an immense success for the Blue Jays, as they finished runners up in the DIII Learfield Director’s Cup, only trailing Emory University. Hopefully this season can see continued success across all disciplines, and perhaps a first place finish in the Director’s Cup to make it three in four years! Without further ado, let’s look at some of the action from the beginning of the season…
Football: W (27 – 13)
Coming off of a dominant 42–14 victory over Ithaca last week, the Blue Jays faced the #21/#20 ranked John Carroll Lobos in their home opener at Homewood Field.
The Lobos were the first team to register a score, kicking a field goal on the opening drive of the game; however, this would be the last time they would hold a lead. Hopkins would respond very quickly with a 4 play, 50 yard drive, capped off by a 24 yard pass from returning graduate QB Bay Harvey to Junior wide receiver Robby Enright. This would be the first of three touchdown passes from the quarterback in what was a memorable return to the field after he suffered an injury early last season.
Mid-way through the second quarter Hopkins had stormed to a 21–3 lead, thanks to long touchdowns to wide receiver Cole Crotty and running back Geoff Schroeder. John Carroll would try and respond with a touchdown of their own just before halftime, but lacked any sustained drives in the second half. Hopkins would add on two more field goals in the fourth quarter, as the defense stood stout against their ranked opponents.
On September 20 we will see the Blue Jays take on Susquehana away from home, where they can hopefully get off to a 3–0 start to the year.
Field Hockey: W (3 – 2), W (2 – 1)
After getting off to a rocky 2–1 record to begin the year, the Blue Jays Field Hockey team would head home to take on #2 ranked Salisbury in what shaped up to be a tightly contested match between two of the best teams in the nation. In what was an incredibly close matchup for the entirety of the game, there was barely an inch that separated the two sides. Each team shot the ball twelve times, and both teams had six saves. The separator? A game winning shot from senior Grace Waldeck with 59 seconds left in the match, capping off an enormous 3–2 victory for the program.
Their next game came again #19 ranked TCNJ away from home, and the Jays were able to ride the wave of momentum into a crucial 2–1 victory. Despite going down 1–0 in the second period, Hopkins never relented, firing back a goal four minutes later, and the eventual winner a couple of minutes after that by graduate student Jenna Halpin. A difficult two game stretch for the Blue Jays ended with two enormous victories, and they will look to continue their good form into their match against York this week.
Water Polo: W (23 – 8), W (22 – 13), W (14 – 8), W (30 – 5)
The Men’s Water Polo team have begun their season strongly, winning seven out of eight total matchups. This past weekend, they took on four different opponents in Caltech, Ottawa (AZ), UC Merced, and Austin, and emerged victorious from all four matches.
The first two games took place on Saturday and both ended in convincing wins, 23–8 over Caltech, and 22–13 over Ottawa (AZ). Amongst the impressive performances, Mason Hofmann, Alec Baker and Iason Mihalopoulos stood out in their win over Ottawa as they scored seven, six and five points respectively, combining to almost outscore Ottawa themselves.
The final two matchups ended up being almost more lopsided than the first two, with a 14–8 win over UC Merced and a 30–5 win over the #25 Austin College Kangaroos. A truly dominant display over the Kangaroos was highlighted once again by the performances of Hofmann and Mihalopoulos, who scored 10 goals between them, and 14 points overall.
This weekend the team will travel to Rhode Island to play four more matches, before finally returning back home to Baltimore to continue their season.
Volleyball: L (1 – 3), W (3 – 0), L (2 – 3)
The Women’s Volleyball team had a slightly disappointing week, only managing one win out of three possible matches at the Carnegie Mellon Quad.
Their first match came against #20 ranked Ithaca in which they suffered their first defeat of the season as they lost three sets to one. The Blue Jays seemed to come out of the gates strongly, winning the first set 25–22, however they would go on to lose the next three sets in agonizingly close fashion.
The second match of the tournament was much more successful, and against a more difficult opponent in #7 ranked MIT. Hopkins never relented or gave MIT an inch of room as they swept them in straight sets, 3–0. An impressive bounce back after their close loss, but unfortunately it wouldn’t hold for too long.
Their final outing came against Carnegie Mellon, and despite it being a tense, back-and-forth matchup that went all five sets, the Blue Jays couldn’t come out on top, losing the final set 6– 15. Despite this, it represented a commendable effort by the Jays either way as they battled back down from 2 sets to none to force the fifth set, and should give them confidence going into the Wid Guiser Invitational this week!
