BALTIMORE, MD – Visiting Ohio State jumped out to a 9-2 lead midway through the second quarter and held off a second-half Johns Hopkins rally to secure a 14-8 Big Ten men's lacrosse victory over the Blue Jays at Homewood Field Saturday afternoon.  The loss spoiled the Johns Hopkins coaching debut of Peter Milliman, whose team rallied to within four several times before a pair of late Buckeye goals accounted for the final scoring.
 
Ohio State used a 5-0 run that turned an early 1-1 tie into a 6-1 lead early in the second quarter.  A Tre Leclair unassisted goal with 8:20 left in the first quarter ignited the spree for the Buckeyes, who got goals from five different players during the run.  A Grant Mitchell goal, his second of the game, with 13:21 on the second-quarter clock capped the surge.
 
Johns Hopkins' Connor DeSimone, who was making his first career start on attack, halted the run with his second unassisted goal of the game just 45 seconds after Mitchell's goal, but Griffin Hughes answered five minutes later to start a three-goal run for OSU that took less than three minutes and gave the Buckeyes the seven-goal lead.
 
After trading goals that bookended halftime, the Blue Jays used a three-goal run of their own to slice a 10-3 deficit to 10-6 at the end of the third quarter.  Junior Garrett Degnon's laser from the wing off a feed from Jacob Angelus made it 10-4 with more than nine minutes left in the third quarter.  That score stood for nearly eight minutes before DeSimone and Jack Keogh added goals in the final 90 seconds to make it a four-goal game entering the fourth quarter.
 
The 10-6 deficit was the first of three times the Blue Jays pulled within four, but each time they did, the Buckeyes answered.  Keogh's goal, which came from a tough angle with just four seconds remaining in the third quarter, was the first of six alternating goals the teams scored.  A Cole Williams goal for the Blue Jays with 9:05 left in the fourth quarter made it 12-8, but Ohio State goalie Skylar Wahlund came up with a big save in-tight on Blue Jay attackman Brendan Grimes a short time later and Hughes' third of the game at the 4:38 mark dashed any hopes of a Johns Hopkins comeback.
 
DeSimone led the Blue Jays with three goals and one assist, while Matt Narewski won 14-of-22 faceoffs and had nine ground balls.  Josh Kirson, a graduate transfer who had played previously at Ohio State, posted 13 saves in goal in his Johns Hopkins debut.
 
Six different players had at least one goal for the Buckeyes with Leclaire (4), Hughes (3) and Jack Myers (3) leading the way offensively.  Wahlund posted 11 saves and added nine ground balls to secure the win in goal for Ohio State, which held advantages in shots (37-32) and ground balls (33-26).
                                                                                                                                                                                                            
Johns Hopkins will return to action on Saturday, February 27 when the Blue Jays travel to Michigan.  Faceoff in Ann Arbor is set for 1 pm.
 
Notes:  The hat trick for DeSimone is the fourth of his career and his four points are a career high • Degnon's goal extended his goal-scoring streak to seven games • Williams' goal was the 80^th of his career • Narewski's 14 faceoff wins mark the fourth time in his career that he has won 14 or more.