April 19, 2008

Box Score

ANNAPOLIS, MD - Playing in front of a hostile crowd of over 16,000 fans at Navy's Marine Corps Stadium, the seventh-ranked Johns Hopkins men's lacrosse team jumped out to an early four-goal lead, withstood a mild Navy rally, held the Mids scoreless for over 30 minutes at one point and cruised to a 12-5 victory over the 10th-ranked Midshipmen Saturday afternoon. The Blue Jays moved back to .500 (5-5) with their second straight win and 34th straight in the series. Navy dropped its second straight and falls to 9-4.

The Blue Jays needed just over 10 minutes to jump to a 4-0 lead as senior attackman Kevin Huntley scored twice in the first six minutes before Kyle Wharton and Steven Boyle added back-to-back extra-man goals in a four-minute span. Huntley opened the scoring with a behind-the-back goal just 1:19 in when he scooped up a loose ball on the crease and scored from three yards out, then brought the heat on his second goal as he swept in from the side and rifled home a 10-yarder off a feed from senior Stephen Peyser.

Wharton and Boyle polished off JHU's first two extra-man chances to push the lead to 4-0. Wharton took a cross-field pass from senior Paul Rabil and blistered a shot past Navy goalie Tommy Phelan from eight yards out, while Boyle, positioned just off the crease to Phelan's right, took a nifty pass from Huntley from the top of the box and quickly slipped a shot home from the doorstep to close the opening spree.

It took less than a minute for Navy to slice the lead in half as sophomore attackman Tim Paul scored back-to-back goals in a 49-second span to make it 4-2. Paul polished of a 5-on-4 fastbreak after a Blue Jay turnover with 3:12 remaining in the opening period and side-armed a shot inside the far post after a nifty spin move just 49 seconds later to make it a two-goal game. Huntley completed the first-quarter hat trick seven seconds after Paul's second goal to give the Blue Jays a three-goal lead at the end of one period.

The pace slowed in the second quarter as the teams traded goals to make it 6-3 at the half. Rabil fired home his 17th goal of the season on an ally dodge with 10:50 remaining in the period to push the lead to 6-2, but the Midshipmen trimmed the lead to three on a Nick Mirabito goal five minutes later as Patrick Moran found him cutting from behind the goal and Mirabito wasted little time beating Blue Jay goalie Michael Gvozden from in close. As it turned out, that would be the last Navy goal until just over three minutes remained in the fourth quarter.

A week after scoring just four seconds into the third quarter, the Blue Jays needed just seven seconds after intermission to increase their least as senior Michael Doneger one-timed a feed from Tom Duerr past a defenseless Phelan after senior Stephen Peyser cleanly won the opening faceoff of the third quarter.

Navy outshot the Blue Jays 10-6 in the third period, but Gvozden registered five of his 16 saves in the period and Hopkins put the game away with back-to-back goals just over two minutes apart midway through the quarter. Doneger made it five goals in the last two games when he took a Mark Bryan pass and again scored from the doorstep with 7:36 remaining and Bryan poked home a rebound after Phelan had made a nice save on a shot by Rabil with 5:15 on the clock.

Peyser and junior Andrew Miller scored in the first five minutes of the fourth quarter to push the lead to 11-3 before Navy scored two of the last three goals to account for the 12-5 final score. Navy's Greg Clement and Sean Standen sandwiched goals around the second career goal for Hopkins' Andrew Jaffe in the final 3:14.

Huntley paced a balanced scoring attack with the three goals and one assist, while Doneger was the only other player with more than one goal. Rabil, Peyser and Bryan started together on the first midfield for the second straight week and each of the three had one goal and one assist. The Blue Jays won 13-of-21 faceoffs and grabbed one more ground ball (26-25) than Navy.

Paul was the only Navy player with more than one point as he scored two of Navy's five goals on the day. Phelan posted seven saves and allowed 10 goals before giving way to Matt Coughlin, who played the final 11:37 and allowed the last two goals.

#7 Johns Hopkins (5-5) 5-1-3-3/12
#10 Navy (9-4) 2-1-0-2/5

Goals: J: Huntley-3, Doneger-2, Rabil, Peyser, Wharton, Boyle, Bryan, Jaffe, Miller. N: Paul-2, Mirabito, Standen, Clement. Assists: J: Bryan, Duerr, Huntley, Peyser, Rbail. N: Gallagher, Moran. Saves: J: Gvozden-16, Sheain-1. N: Phelan-7, Coughlin-0. Shots: J-25. N-37. EMO: J: 2-for-4. N: 0-for-2. Attendance: 16,042.

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