May 22, 2004

Box Score

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. -- Senior attackman Conor Ford tied his career high with five goals and the top-ranked Johns Hopkins men's lacrosse team used an 8-2 run midway through the game as the Blue Jays rolled past eighth-seeded North Carolina, 15-9 in the NCAA Quarterfinals at Virginia's Scott Stadium Saturday afternoon. The Blue Jays, who improve to 13-1 and advance to the national semifinals for the third straight year, will meet the winner of tomorrow's game between fourth-seeded Syracuse and fifth-seeded Georgetown in next week's semifinals. North Carolina had its three-game winning streak snapped and ends the season at 10-5.

"When we drew North Carolina we knew it would be a very difficult game," Johns Hopkins head coach Dave Pietramala noted in the post-game press conference. "We thought for us to have a chance to win we'd have to hold them in single digits. I'm very proud of the way our team played today and I'm very happy for our seniors. We didn't recruit them, but they have bought into everything we have preached."

The Blue Jays trailed 2-1 late in the first quarter before junior midfielder Matt Rewkowski jump-started the 8-2 run with back-to-back goals. His first, with 3:51 remaining in the first quarter, capped a long possession and came off an assist from senior Kevin Boland, who found Rewkowski eight yards in front of the cage. Rewkowski gave the Blue Jays the lead for good just over a minute into the second quarter when he drove the left side and beat North Carolina goalie Paul Spellman high to the far side.

After Joe McDermott and UNC's Ryan Blair traded goals to give JHU a 4-3 lead with just under 12 minutes to play in the second quarter, Ford took over as he scored the next five Blue Jay goals in a span of just over 11 minutes to give JHU an 8-4 lead at the half.

Ford's first two goals came just 54 seconds apart. Junior midfielder Kyle Harrison drew a double team for a split second and found Ford, who beat Spellman with a low-to-high shot at the 10:41 mark. Less than a minute later sophomore Greg Peyser worked the same play and Ford wasted no time beating Spellman again to give JHU a 6-3 lead.

North Carolina's Dave Duffy trimmed the deficit to 6-4 as he drove to the goal and beat sophomore goalie Scott Smith with 3:42 remaining in the period. Ford, however, wasn't finished as he tallied twice in the final 3:10. Junior short-stick defensive middie Benson Erwin came up with a loose ball in the Hopkins defensive zone and raced the length of the field, where he fed Ford for his third goal of the game to make it 7-4. Rewkowski did the dirty work on Ford's fourth goal as he drove inside and drew a double team before flipping the ball to Ford, who bounced a five-yard shot past a defenseless Spellman.

"He's (Ford) is the best All-American no one talks about," Pietramala noted. "I'm amazed at the way he puts the ball in the goal -- he didn't waste many shots today, he put the ball on the goal.

When Ford capped his personal five-goal run with an extra-man goal less than two minutes into the third quarter, it appeared the Blue Jays might run away with the game. However, the Tar Heels fired off a quick three-goal run to pull within 9-7 with more than eight minutes left in the third. Lance Zimmerman opend the spree when he scored his only goal of the game off an assist from junior Jed Prossner. Prossner then scored his second goal of the game off an assist from Duffy, while Andrew Lucas backed in his defender and fired a shot past Smith just inside the far post to cap the run. UNC scored the three goals in just 2:13.

Harrison finally stopped the run when he tallied his second goal of the game 46 seconds after Lucas' goal and Erwin scored his first goal of the season less than two minutes later to give the Blue Jays an 11-7 lead at the end of the third quarter.

The Blue Jays pushed the lead to 12-7 at the 12:54 mark of the fourth quarter when Boland scored the first of his two fourth-quarter goals. The 'Heels had a chance to make it interesting in the final 10 minutes as Mike McCall scored an extra-man goal with 11:03 remaining and UNC had another extra-man opportunity when JHU's Corey Harned was called for slashing with 8:29 remaining. However, Smith came up with a save and Erwin broke out and fed Harrison, who scored his second short-handed goal of the season with 7:48 remaining to all but seal the victory.

Boland and Rewkowski scored late goals before UNC's Bryant Will closed the scoring with an extra-man goal in the final minute.

Ford score five goals in a game once in his first 51 career games, but has now done it three times in his last five games. He moved into a tie for 14th on JHU's career goal-scoring charts as he now has 99 in his career. He is tied with Del Dressel (1983-86) and Peter Scott (1981-84) on the list.

Harrison and Rewkowski both had three goals and one assist , while Boland had two goals and two assists. Boland's two assists give him 79 in his career, which moves him into 10th on JHU's career list. He also now has 18 career assists in the NCAA Tournament, which is tied for second best on JHU's career NCAA charts. Smith had 12 saves in goal for the Blue Jays, the second-highest total of his career. His top two career save totals both have come against North Carolina.

The story offensively for the Blue Jays, after Ford, was Erwin, who entered the game with career totals of three goals and six assists for nine points and never had a multi-point game before the three-point showing against the Tar Heels.

The Tar Heels had eight different players score goals, but only Prossner had more than one. He had two goals and one assist to lead the Heels with three points. Ryan Blair, Zimmerman, Duffy and Andrew McElduff all had one goal and one assist to lead the balanced attack for UNC.

North Carolina once again got an outstanding effort from senior Kevin Frew, who won 17-of-28 faceoffs and had 13 ground balls. Spellman added 13 saves, but he was under constant pressure from the start as JHU outshot UNC, 26-13 in the first half and 42-37 for the game (UNC held a 15-6 advantage in third quarter).

Johns Hopkins will be making its 25th appearance in the national semifinals and fifth in the last six years. This is the first time the Blue Jays have advanced to the semifinals for three straight years since 1985-87.

#8 North Carolina (10-5) 2-2-3-2/9 #1 Johns Hopkins (13-1) 2-6-3-4/15

Goals: N: Prossner-2, A. McElduff, Blair, Duffy, Zimmerman, McCall, Lucas, Will. J: Ford-5, Harrison-3, Rewkowski-3, Boland-2, Erwin, McDermott. Assists: N: Blair, Duffy, Frew, A. McElduff, Prossner, Zimmerman. J: Boland-2, Erwin-2, Byrne, Harrison, Peyser, Rewkowski. Saves: N: Spellman-13. J: Smith-12. EMO: N: 2-for-3. J: 2-for-2.

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