May 14, 2005

Box Score

BALTIMORE, MD -- The top-seeded Johns Hopkins men's lacrosse team jumped out to a 5-0 lead after one quarter and never looked back as the Blue Jays rolled past Marist, 22-6, in the first round of the 2005 NCAA Men's Lacrosse Championships at Homewood Field Saturday afternoon. The Blue Jays, who advance to the quarterfinals for the 33rd time in 34 trips to the NCAA Tournament, improve to 13-0 on the year, while Marist had a two-game winning streak snapped and ends the season at 8-8.

The Blue Jays needed just over five minutes to open the scoring and then just over five more to score their first five goals. Senior Matt Rewkowski's (Bethpage, NY/Bethpage) extra-man goal 5:06 into the game gave the Blue Jays a 1-0 lead and freshman Stephen Peyser (Lloyd Harbor, NY/Cold Spring Harbor) pushed the lead to 2-0 with an unassisted goal just 43 seconds later. Senior Kyle Barrie (Narberth, PA/The Haverford School) and freshmen Kevin Huntley (Towson, MD/Calvert Hall) and Paul Rabil (Gaithersburg, MD/DeMatha) added goals in a span of 3:30 a short time later and the outcome was never in doubt after that.

The Red Foxes, who were making their first appearance in the tournament, sandwiched a pair of goals around two more Blue Jay tallies in the first six minutes of the second quarter to make it 7-2. Patrick Van Horn's (Liverpool, NY/Liverpool) extra-man goal with 14:27 remaining in the second quarter was the first-ever for Marist in the NCAAs, while Ryan Blaney's (Stony Brook, NY/Ward Melville) 12-yard blast with 9:16 left in the period answered back-to-back goals by Rabil and Peyser. Huntley made it 8-2 with the second of his four goals less than a minute after Blaney's goal and that score stood for over three minutes before the Blue Jays scored three goals in a span of 17 seconds to push it to 11-2. Barrie's second goal, off an assist from Rewkowski, ignited the spree, which included back-to-back goals by Kyle Harrison (Baltimore, MD/Friends) and Jamison Koesterer (Cazenovia, NY/Cazenovia), who both cleanly won faceoffs and went down and scored unassisted goals.

Juniors Joe Benson (Baltimore, MD/McDonogh) and Greg Peyser (Lloyd Harbor, NY/Cold Spring Harbor) added goals in the final four minutes of the first half to make it 13-2 at halftime and a pair of goals in the first two minutes of the third quarter and another six minutes later capped what was a 9-0 Hopkins run. Huntley's third goals of the game 51 seconds into the third quarter was JHU's first man-down goal of the season, while sophomore Jake Byrne (Potomac, MD/Landon) and freshman Garrett Stanwick (Aquasco, MD/St. Mary's) added the final two goals of the run.

"We said all year that we wanted to be playing our best lacrosse in May and today I thought we played hard for the full 60 minutes," Johns Hopkins head coach Dave Pietramala noted in the post-game press conference. "We got a chance to get a lot of players into the game early and I thought they did a nice job for us. I was pleased with the way we came out in the first half."

Marist scored twice in the final five minutes of the third quarter as Keith Detelj (Sayville, NY/Connetquot) and Bill Duerr (Southington, CT/Southington) tallied for the Foxes, but Hopkins' dominance on faceoffs (the Blue Jays won all eight in the third quarter and 23-of-30 for the game) prohibited them from ever scoring back-to-back goals in the game. Detelj's goal with 4:38 remaining in the third quarter was quickly answered by the Blue Jays as freshman Michael Doneger (Hewlett, NY/Lynbrook) scored twice in a 28-second span and Duerr's goal was offset by Huntley and Doneger, who scored in a 59-second span late in the third quarter. Blaney and Tim Iuculano (Silver Spring, MD/St. John's) sandwiched goals around two more tallies by Benson in the fourth quarter to close out the scoring.

"We were very, very excited to be here and we'll use today as a learning experience," Marist coach Andy Copelan stated. "Johns Hopkins made us pay for every mistake we made and we didn't take advantage of some of the opportunities we had. I can't sit here and tell you it's ok to lose 22-6, but our players fought to the end and I am proud of their effort."

In the end, the Blue Jays were simply too balanced for the Red Foxes. Hopkins got seven goals and two assists from its starting attack, four goals and six assists from its first midfield, four goals and two assists from its second midfield and seven goals and four assists from other players.

Rabil scored the two goals and added a career-high four assists for a personal-best six points, while Huntley scored a career-high four goals and also added an assist to match his career-high of five points. Doneger and Benson added three goals apiece and Barrie (2g, 1a) and Rewkowski (1g, 2a) chipped in with three points each. The Blue Jays held commanding advantages in shots (52-28) and ground balls (46-23), won the 23-of-30 faceoffs and were successful on all 20 of their clearing attempts.

Blaney scored the two goals to lead the Red Foxes, while Detelj and Iuculano both scored a goal and added an assist. No other Marist player tallied more than one point. Stephen Gravino (East Meadow, NY/Baldwin) posted 15 saves in goal for the Foxes before giving way to Terrence Dempsey (Lynbrook, NY/Chaminade) with just over four minutes remaining. Gravino allowed 20 of the 22 goals.

Johns Hopkins goalie Jesse Schwartzman (Owings Mills, MD/Pikesville) posted eight saves and allowed four goals in three quarters of action for the Blue Jays, who matched their all-time NCAA-high with the 22 goals. The 22 goals are also the most Hopkins has ever scored under Pietramala.

Johns Hopkins advances to next week's quarterfinals at Homewood Field. The Blue Jays will face the winner of Sunday's game between eighth-seeded Massachusetts and Syracuse. The other game at Homewood Field next Saturday will match Navy, a 9-7 winner over Delaware earlier today, against the winner of the Virginia-Albany game, which will be played later tonight at Virginia.

Marist (8-8) 0-2-2-2/6

#1 Johns Hopkins (13-0) 5-8-7-2/22

Goals: M: Blaney-2, Detelj, Iuculano, Duerr, Van Horne. J: Huntley-4, Doneger-3, Benson-3, Rabil-2, Barrie-2, S. Peyser-2, Rewkowski, Koesterer, G. Peyser, Byrne, Harrison, Stanwick. Assists: M: Detelj, Iuculano, McGuire,. J: Rabil-4, Dabrowski-2, Rewkowski-2, Barrie, Castle, Erwin, Huntley, Koesterer, G. Peyser. Saves: M: Gravino-15, Dempsey-0. J: Schwarztman-8, Smith-1, Locey-1 . EMO: M: 1-for-3. J: 1-for-3. Attendance: 1,175.

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