April 28, 2007

Box Score

TOWSON, MD - The fifth-ranked Johns Hopkins men's lacrosse team used a 5-0 run midway through the game and got two goals from four different players as the Blue Jays slipped past 15th-ranked Towson, 9-7, in front of 4,427 at Unitas Stadium Saturday afternoon. The win is the third straight overall for the Blue Jays (7-4) and the 12th straight for Johns Hopkins against Towson, which slips to 8-5 with the loss.

The Blue Jays trailed 5-3 late in the second quarter when a Steven Boyle goal sparked a game-changing 5-0 run for the Blue Jays. Freshman Michael Kimmel forced a turnover at midfield with the clock winding down in the first half and senior Eric Zerrlaut came up with the ground ball. Zerrlaut found Boyle alone behind all but one defender and Boyle slipped past him and fired home an eight-yard shot to make it 5-4 at the half.

Boyle's goal sparked the 5-0 run for the Blue Jays and Boyle had a hand in each of the first three goals in the spree. He caught the Towson defense ball-watching early in the second half and found Stephen Peyser alone at the top of the box. With time and room, Peyser blistered a shot past Towson goalie Matt Antol to tie the game and Boyle netted his second goal of the game four minutes later when senior Jake Byrne hit him in stride coming from behind the goal and Boyle scored from in tight to give the Blue Jays a 6-5 lead.

Peyser added his second goal of the game and Byrne scored late in the third quarter off a nifty pass inside from Boyle to extend the Blue Jays' lead to 8-5 entering the fourth quarter. The Tigers needed just over three minutes to cut the deficit to two goals as Jonathan Engelke beat Blue Jay goalie Jesse Schwartzman from a tough angle with 11:50 remaining to make it 8-6. The Blue Jays had held Towson scoreless for 22:01 before Engelke's goal.

Despite controlling possession for a majority of the second half, the Blue Jays couldn't push the lead back to three goals and Towson's Bobby Griebe made them pay. After misfiring on a low shot from a bad angle, he came up with a loose ball in front on the rebound and beat Schwartzman one-on-one from six-feet away to make it a one-goal game with 6:46 remaining.

Both teams had possession down the stretch with the Blue Jays trying to run out the clock, but Towson forced a turnover with just over two minutes remaining and called timeout with 1:48 remaining to set up a final chance. However, Brendan Skakandi and Matt Bocklet double-teamed Brian Vetter at the top of the box and Skakandi came up with the loose ball. The Blue Jays cleared, called timeout and Rabil split a double-team behind the goal and punched the game-sealing goal into an open net with 1:03 remaining.

Towson had most of the momentum in the first half as Adam Hagelin opened the scoring just under three minutes into the game before the Blue Jays temporarily took control with back-to-back goals by junior Kevin Huntley in a span of 74 seconds. The 2-1 lead held for the Blue Jays until late in the first period, when Vetter and Engelke sandwiched goals around a Keith Obloj tally to five Towson a 4-2 lead at the end of the first quarter.

Rabil finally ended a scoreless streak of just over 15 minutes for the Blue Jays when he beat his defender cleanly from behind the goal and beat Antol from in close to make it 4-3, but Vetter got free again and bounced a 10-yarder past Schwartzman to restore the two-goal lead for the Tigers. It appeared that would be the score at the half when the Blue Jays misfired on a shot with less than 30 seconds to play and Towson started to clear, but Kimmel forced the turnover that led to Boyle's goal and that set the stage for the game-changing run that helped improve JHU's all-time record against Towson to 32-3.

Boyle led the Blue Jays with the two goals and two assists, while Rabil also scored twice and added an assist. Huntley and Peyser both scored twice for the Blue Jays and Peyser had his second straight dominating effort on faceoffs as he won 12-of-15 on the day and grabbed a game-high six ground balls. Byrne's one goal and one assist pushed him pass the 100 career point mark as he now has 101 to his credit.

Towson got two goals and an assist from Vetter and two goals from Engelke, but the Blue Jays took 14-of-20 faceoffs and won the ground ball war 29-20. Antol posted 10 saves in goal for the Tigers, who will host Hofstra in the CAA Semifinals on Wednesday night.

Johns Hopkins (7-4) 2-2-4-1/9
Towson (8-5) 4-1-0-2/7

Goals: J: Huntley-2, Boyle-2, Rabil-2, Peyser-2, Byrne. TU: Vetter-2, Engelke-2, Griebe, Obloj, Hagelin. Assists: J: Byel-2, Bryan, Byrne, Kimmel, Rabil. TU: Griebe, Hagelin, Obloj, Vetter. Saves: J: Schwartzman-9. TU: Antol-10. Shots: J-34. T-32. EMO: J: 0-for-0. T: 0-for-1. Attendance: 4,427.

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