The Game
« Johns Hopkins (7-6, 3-2 B1G) opens post-season play as the Blue Jays travel to Piscataway, New Jersey to take on Maryland (11-3, 3-2 B1G) in the Big Ten Semifinals.
« The 119th installment of the greatest rivalry in college lacrosse will be the second of the two semifinal games at Rutgers on Thursday, May 2. Top-seeded Penn State will play host and fourth-seeded Rutgers in the first game at 5 pm with the second-seeded Blue Jays and third-seeded Terrapins to follow at approximately 7:30 pm.
« Johns Hopkins is coming off a 16-11 victory at then second-ranked Maryland last Saturday in College Park.
The Facts
« This is the 132nd season of Johns Hopkins men's lacrosse. JHU first fielded a team in 1883.
« Johns Hopkins enters this week's game with an all-time record of 990-340-15.
« JHU owns 44 national championships with nine NCAA titles, 29 USILA titles and six ILA crowns to its credit.
Poll Position
« Johns Hopkins is ranked 15th in this week's USILA Coaches Poll and 16th in the Inside Lacrosse Media Poll. These are the two official in-season polls conducted throughout the regular season.
« Maryland is ranked fourth in this week's USILA Coaches Poll and fifth in the Inside Lacrosse Media Poll. Both complete polls can be found on page 13.
« This week's game will be Johns Hopkins' fourth straight against a team ranked in the top 10 in the nation at the time of the game.
« This week's game will be Johns Hopkins' 10th of the season against a team ranked in this week's USILA Top 20.
Series History
« This week's game will be the 119th game in a series that dates to a 10-0 Johns Hopkins win in 1895.
« JHU leads the all-time series 73-44-1 after grabbing the 16-11 win at Maryland last week. The Blue Jays have won the last two game in the series.
« This will be the second straight year, the third time in five years and the 16th time since 1972 that the teams meet twice in one season.\
« This will be the first time in series history that the teams meet in back-to-back games.
Hopkins-Maryland Rematches
« This will be the 16th time Johns Hopkins and Maryland meet twice in the same season.
« In the previous 15 instances, there have been eight sweeps (six by Johns Hopkins, two by Maryland) and seven times the loser of game one has come back to win the rematch.
« Since 1987, there have been seven Johns Hopkins-Maryland rematches. In those seven, the loser of game one has come back to win game two six times, including last season's 13-10 Johns Hopkins win in the Big Ten Championship game, which came a week after Maryland topped the Blue Jays, 8-7, in triple overtime.
Getting Offensive in the B1G Tournament
« This week's game against Maryland will be the seventh Big Ten Tournament game Johns Hopkins has played since the inception of the league in 2015.
« In the previous six Big Ten Tournament games, Johns Hopkins has scored 12 or more goals in five of the six and 13+ in four of the six.
« The only time Johns Hopkins failed to score at least 12 goals in a Big Ten Tournament game came in the 2018 semifinals against Ohio State, when the Blue Jays topped the Buckeyes, 6-5, on an Alex Concannon goal with 11.3 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter.
B1G Tournament - A Little History
« The Big Ten Men's Lacrosse Tournament is in its fifth year of existence as the league added men's lacrosse in 2015.
« There has never been a Big Ten Championship game without either Johns Hopkins or Maryland. In 2018, JHU and Maryland met in the title game (a 13-10 Blue Jay victory).
« Either Johns Hopkins (2015, 2018) or Maryland (2016, 2017) has won every Big Ten Men's Lacrosse Tournament.
« The top seed has advanced to the title game every year. The number-two seed has advanced three times (2016, 2017, 2018) and the number-three seed (2015) has advanced once.
At HighPoint.com Stadium
« Johns Hopkins has played two games at HighPoint.com Stadium since joining the Big Ten in 2015. The Blue Jays split those two games against Rutgers (lost 16-9 in 2016, won 13-12 in 2018).
More HighPoint.com Stadium
« Johns Hopkins is no stranger to playing post-season games in HighPoint.com Stadium. In fact, this will be the seventh post-season game the Blue Jays play here.
« Three of JHU's nine NCAA titles were won in this stadium (1974, 1978, 1987) with the 1987 title being won with a sophomore defenseman named Dave Pietramala leading the way.
For What It's Worth
« This week's game will be JHU's 14th game of the season. Not including their games against JHU, the Blue Jays' first 13 opponents are a combined 111-55 (.669) through games of April 28. That ranks as the highest opponent winning percentage in the nation.Â
Doing the Little Things
« In the last nine games, JHU is 177-of-205 (.863) on clears and has won 175-of-300 (.583) faceoffs. This is a big improvement from the Blue Jays' first two games of the season, when they were 28-of-40 (.700) on clears and 25-of-61 (.417) on faceoffs in losses to Towson and Loyola.
Lending a Hand
« Through 13 games, 94 of Johns Hopkins' 156 goals have been assisted ... that's 60.3%. By comparison, JHU collected assists on 62.3% of its goals last season.
« For the record, the last time Johns Hopkins assisted on better than 65% of its goals for an entire season was in 2003, when the Blue Jays totaled 151 assists on 224 goals (67.4%).
Spreading it Around
« Johns Hopkins has 19 different goal-scorers and 23 different players have registered at least one point through 13 games.
« By comparison, Maryland has 14 players who have scored at least one goal and 17 players have registered at least one point for the Terps.
A Season-High
« Johns Hopkins scored a season-high 16 goals in last week's game at Maryland. That also represented the most goals the Terrapins have allowed since 2013, when they lost to Cornell, 16-8, in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
« JHU is averaging 12.0 goals per game and has scored 12+ in seven of 13 games.
Class Act
« Johns Hopkins has scored 156 goals and collected 94 assists for 250 points through 13 games with a strong balance in the scoring breakdown among the four classes.
« Blue Jay seniors lead the way with 47 goals and 70 points, while the team's juniors lead the way with 26 assists.
« The balance in scoring has been remarkable as each class has totaled at least 27 goals and 49 points through 13 games. The freshman, junior and senior classes all have at least 65 points in 13 games.
Non-Offensive Scoring
« With the addition of a shot clock this season, the pace of play has quickened and has resulted in more transition lacrosse. This has resulted in more scoring for Johns Hopkins' non-offensive players.
« Through 13 games, non-offensive players (defensemen, long & short-stick defensive middies, faceoff specialists & goalies) have accumulated 13 goals and 19 assists (32 points) for the Blue Jays.
« By comparison, in 17 games last season, the Blue Jays' non-offensive players totaled 10 goals and 7 assists (17 points).
« JHU's non-offensive players have combined for 29 points (12g, 17a) in the last 11 games - an average of 2.64 points per game after they totaled two goals in the win at Maryland. They combined for three goals and three assists in the 11-10 win at North Carolina and two goals and three assists in the wins over Princeton and Rutgers.
In Case We Get There
« Johns Hopkins is 27-16 (.628) in overtime under the direction of head coach Dave Pietramala. JHU's last overtime game came in the first round of the 2018 NCAA Tournament, when the Blue Jays topped Georgetown, 10-9.
« Johns Hopkins has won seven of its last 10 overtime games.
One-Goal Wonders
« Including the 14-13 loss to Ohio State on April 14, Johns Hopkins is 56-27 (.675) in one-goal games under head coach Dave Pietramala.
« The Blue Jays were 4-1 in one-goal games in 2018 and are 6-2 in their last eight one-goal games.
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