May 13, 2007

Box Score

BALTIMORE, MD - Johns Hopkins freshman midfielder Michael Kimmel scored just one goal in Saturday night's NCAA Men's Lacrosse First Round game against Notre Dame, but it's the one everyone will remember as his unassisted tally one-minute into overtime lifted the third-seeded Blue Jays to a thrilling 11-10 win over the Fighting Irish. Kimmel is the first freshman in school history to score a game-winning goal in overtime in an NCAA Tournament game. The Blue Jays (10-4) won for the sixth straight time and advance to next Saturday's quarterfinals, where they will face the winner of Sunday's Princeton-Georgetown game. Notre Dame (11-4) had an eight-game winning streak snapped with the loss.

The Blue Jays led by two on four different occasions in the second half, but could never push the lead to three and the Irish capitalized late. After Brian Christopher scored his second goal of the game on a sneaky shot from the side, the Irish mounted their final comeback. Ryan Hoff scored the first of his two fourth-quarter goals with 7:19 remaining as he took a feed from Will Yateman and picked the top corner of the far post just after the Blue Jays had killed a man-down situation.

Hoff then forced overtime with his second goal of the period as the Irish forced a turnover with 32 seconds remaining and quickly transitioned up field, where senior Brian Hubschmann threaded a low pass to Hoff on the crease and Hoff slipped a quick shot past Hopkins goalie Jesse Schwartzman to forced overtime. There, junior Stephen Peyser won the faceoff and the Blue Jays worked the ball to Kimmel, who dodged from behind the goal, lost his footing to the right of the goal and fired a five-yard shot past Notre Dame's Joey Kemp from his knees to lift Hopkins to its ninth straight overtime victory.

Notre Dame came out firing early as Michael Podgajny scored twice during a 4-1 game-opening run as he opened the scoring just 61 seconds into the game and Hubschmann scored twice during the spree as the Irish held the Blue Jays to a just a Peyser goal in the first 21:24. Peyser's goal came just under four minutes after Podgajny had opened the scoring and was followed shortly after by a 45-minute lightening delay.

Hubschmann's first goal came less than a minute after play resumed and Podgajny scored with just eight seconds left in the first quarter. Hubschmann's second goal five minutes into the second quarter was answered by the first of Jake Byrne's three goals in the game as junior Paul Rabil dodged from the top and drew a slide before finding Byrne behind the play. Byrne quickly fired one past Kemp, who was caught coming back to cover the weak side.

Byrne's goal ignited a 6-1 run for the Blue Jays, who got an unassisted goal from freshman Steven Boyle to cut the deficit to 4-3 at the half and tallies by Rabil and Byrne before the third quarter was seven minutes old to take their first lead of the game at 5-4. An extra-man goal by Brett Vecchio drew the Irish even, but the Blue Jays' second midfield punched home two goals in a span of 1:31 late in the period to give Hopkins the first of its four two-goal leads. Senior Drew Dabrowski was on the back end of a nice give-and-go with junior Kevin Huntley and sophomore Brian Christopher blew a shot past Kemp from 10-yards out after taking a nice pass from linemate Mark Bryan with 3:03 remaining.

A 37-minute lightening delay followed shortly after Christopher's goal and the teams traded the next six goals after play resumed. Byrne, Rabil and Christopher all scored during the six-goal standoff ,with Podgajny scoring twice and Hubschmann once for Notre Dame. Christopher's second goal with 8:42 remaining in the fourth quarter gave the Blue Jays a 10-8 lead, but Hoff's two late goals forced the extra session, where Kimmel etched his name in the record book.

Rabil led the Blue Jays with two goals and two assists, while Byrne (3g), Huntley (3a) and Christopher (2g) all had at least two points. Schwartzman was solid in goal with 14 saves, while Peyser won 12-of-17 faceoffs, grabbed a career-high-tying 12 ground balls and scored the one goal.

Podgajny scored a game-high four goals and Hubschmann scored three goals and added two assists. Hoff added the two late goals and Yateman chipped in with two assists for the Irish, who got eight saves from Kemp.

#11 Notre Dame (11-4) 3-1-3-3-0/10
#5 Johns Hopkins (10-4) 1-2-5-2-1/11

Goals: N: Podgajny-4, Hubschmann-3, Hoff-2, Vecchio. J: Byrne-3, Rabil-2, Christopher-2, Peyser, Kimmel, Boyle, Dabrowski. Assists: N: Hubschman-2, Yateman-2, Leach. J: Huntley-3, Rabil-2, Bryan. Saves: N: Kemp-8. J: Schwartzman-14. Shots: N-43. J-36. EMO: N: 1-for-3. J: 0-for-0. Attendance: 2,548.

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