BALTIMORE, MD – The Johns Hopkins men's lacrosse team trotted out a revamped lineup for Saturday's Big Ten opener against Michigan and the Blue Jays responded with one of their most complete games of the season and a 15-12 win over the Wolverines at Homewood Field.  The win snaps a two-game losing skid for the Blue Jays, who even their record at 5-5 overall and move to 1-0 in the Big Ten. After a 7-0 start, the Wolverines are now 7-3 overall and 0-1 in the Big Ten.
 
After spotting the Wolverines a pair of early two-goal leads, the Blue Jays responded with a 6-1 run that turned a 4-2 deficit into an 8-5 second quarter lead that they never relinquished.  During the run, the Blue Jay defense held the high-scoring Wolverines to just the one goal over a period of more than 18 minutes to close the first half.
 
Jacob Angelus, who was making his first career start on attack, jumped started the spree with the first of his three goals on the day and the 6-1 spurt would include six different goals scorers, including back-to-back strikes from defenseman Scott Smith and short stick defensive midfielder Hunter Jaronski that gave the Blue Jays their first lead at 5-4 early in the second period.
 
The Blue Jays carried the 8-5 lead into halftime and the teams traded the first six goals of the second half.  The Blue Jays held leads of 9-6, 10-7 and 11-8, but each time they went up three, the Wolverines answered to stay in the game.  The 11-8 lead, which came on the second goal of the game from Dylan Bauer at the 10:20 mark of the fourth quarter, was answered by back-to-back goals from Michigan's Gavin Legg and Emmett Houlighan in a span of 90 seconds midway through the fourth quarter to make it 11-10.
 
With the game in the balance as the clocked ticked under the eight-minute mark, the Blue Jays responded with a four-goal run over a span of just over seven minutes to grab a 15-10 lead with less than a minute remaining. A Johnathan Peshko strike just 35 seconds after the Houlighan goal ignited the game-deciding run for the Blue Jays, who also got two from Degnon and one more from Angelus during the run to grab the five-goal lead.  Ryan Cohen and Jake Bonomi scored in the final 32 seconds for Michigan to account for the 15-12 final score.
 
The Wolverines grabbed the early 4-2 lead on the strength of some great work at the faceoff X by Justin Wietfeldt, who won 6-of-8 faceoffs in the first quarter; Josh Zawada scored two of the first four goals for Michigan, but after his goal at the 3:44 mark of the first quarter, the Blue Jay defense held the Wolverines to just an Aidan Mulholland goal at the nine-minute mark of the second quarter before halftime as they grabbed what proved to be the insurmountable three-goal lead.
 
What It Means
• Hopkins is now 9-1 all-time against Michigan.  The Blue Jays have scored at least 14 goals in eight of 10 all-time meetings against the Wolverines.
• Since joining the Big Ten in 2015, the Blue Jays are now 5-2 all-time in Big Ten openers.
 
Inside the Box Score – Johns Hopkins
• Angelus had career-highs of three goals, four assists and seven points.
• Degnon had three goals and a career-high three assists for six points.  In the last three games, he has 11 goals and five assists.
• Jaronski and Bauer both scored their first career goals; Bauer saw extensive action on attach and finished with two goals and one assist.
• Josh Kirson posted 11 saves in goal for the Blue Jays.
• The Blue Jays got four goals and three assists from players who primarily played on the second midfield today.
• 11 of JHU's 15 goals were assisted and the Blue Jays scored on 15-of-41 shots on the day.
• The Blue Jay defense had nine caused turnovers; this gives JHU 30 caused turnovers in the last three games.
 
Inside the Box Score - Michigan
• Wietfeldt won 17-of-23 faceoffs with six ground balls and scored a goal.
• Zawada, who entered the game averaging more than six points per game, had three goals and one assist and Cohen had one goal and three assists.
• The Wolverines held slight advantages in shots (42-41) and ground balls (31-29) and won 20-of-30 faceoffs.
• Shane Carr posted 11 saves in goal for the Wolverines.
 
Up Next
Johns Hopkins will return to action on Sunday, April 3 when the Blue Jays travel to Rutgers (7 pm) to take on the Scarlet Knights.  The game will air live on BTN.
 

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