SYRACUSE, NY – The Johns Hopkins men's lacrosse team got a career-high 21 saves from senior goalie Tim Marcille and the visiting Blue Jays scored the final three goals of the game in an 11-9 come-from-behind win at Syracuse Saturday afternoon in the JMA Wireless Dome.  The Blue Jays improve to 5-3 with the victory, while the Orange slip to 3-4 with the loss.
 
In a game that was tied eight times, it was the late three-goal Blue Jay run that proved to be the difference.  Down 9-8 after Michael Leo's extra-man goal for the Orange with 11 minutes remaining, the Blue Jays held the Orange scoreless down the stretch, scored twice in a 65-second span late in the period to turn the one-goal deficit into a one-goal lead and then got a pole goal for insurance in the final minute.
 
The three-goal spurt was jump-started by freshman Matt Collison, who froze the defense with a hitch at 12 yards and then got inside to seven before beating Syracuse goalie Will Mark with just over six minutes remaining.  The game was even just over a minute later than junior Ryan Evans dodged hard to the goal from behind the net and slipped home a shot from in tight before taking a big hit on the crease.
 
The Blue Jays had a chance to push the lead to two with just over 90 seconds remaining, but a Jacob Angelus offering rang off the crossbar and the Orange cleared to get one more chance. Out of a timeout, senior Hunter Jaronski forced an SU turnover and jump-started a Blue Jay transition opportunity that junior long-stick middie Patrick Deans finished off a feed from Angelus to seal the victory.
 
The late-game run to grab the win was possible in large part because of a standout first half from Marcille, who posted eight of his 21 saves in the first quarter and another seven in the second.  The 15 first-half saves were, at that point, already tied for the second-best total of his career.
 
The Orange scored twice in the first 3:20 of the game to grab a quick two-goal lead, but the Blue Jays were even late in the first period after Dylan Bauer and Garrett Degnon scored for the Blue Jays to knot things up at 2-2.
 
From there, neither team would lead by more than one until the Blue Jays' late spurt with ties at every turn until Hopkins went up for good at 10-9 on the Evans goal.
 
The Blue Jays had their only lead of the first half at 5-4 after back-to-back strikes from Cameron Chauvette and Russell Melendez midway through the second quarter, but Syracuse got two in the final 50 seconds of the period, the second of the game from Hiltz and the first from Finn Thompson, to carry a 6-5 lead into halftime.
 
The teams traded two-goal spurts in the third quarter with Melendez notching a pair to open the period, only to have Thompson and Leo answer to give the Orange an 8-7 lead with just over two minutes remaining in the quarter.  A long scrum on the faceoff following Leo's goal eventually found the Blue Jays' Jack Hawley with the ground ball in an unsettled situation and he found a streaking Angelus on the wing; Angelus beat Mark on the run to tie things up entering the final period.  Prior to Leo's goal, the Orange had a two-man advantage for a minute, but the Blue Jay defense held to keep things tight.
 
Leo's extra-man goal to open the fourth quarter came just under four minutes into the final quarter, but the Blue Jay defense would hold the Orange to just one shot in the final 11 minutes and Collison's goal ignited the game-ending three-goal spurt.
 
Inside the Box Score – Johns Hopkins
• Marcille is the first Blue Jay goalie with 20 or more saves since Josh Kirson had 20 at North Carolina early in the 2022 season.  He is the first JHU goalie with 21 or more saves since at least 2000.
• Degnon's two goals extended his goal-scoring streak to 20 games and his first goal of the game was also the 100^th point of his career.  His 20-game goal-scoring streak is the longest by a Johns Hopkins player since Ryan Brown had a 37-game run from 2013-16.
• Angelus finished with one goal and three assists and now has 99 points in his career.
• Senior Matt Narewski saw his most extensive action of the season and was 5-of-7 on faceoffs with two ground balls.
• The Blue Jays were 20-of-22 on clears and won the ground ball battle 27-24 with a 15-9 advantage in the second half.
• Eight different players scored goals and 10 different players had at least one point for the Blue Jays.
 
Inside the Box Score - Syracuse
• Hiltz (3g, 1a) and Joey Spallina (1g, 3a) led the way offensively for Syracuse with four points apiece.
• SU got all nine of its goals and all six of its assists from starters.  Non-starters were 0-for-12 shooting on the day for the Orange.
• Mark posted 12 saves in goal and Jack Fine went 8-of-14 on faceoffs for SU.
 
Notes of Interest
• Including his time as the head coach at Cornell, Peter Milliman is now 4-1 against Syracuse.
• The visiting team has won five of the last 11 games in the Hopkins-Syracuse series; the Blue Jays now lead the series 32-28-1 and have won two straight against the Orange.
• JHU got one goal and one assist from non-offensive players today and now has eight goals and seven assists in eight games from non-offensive personnel.
 
Up Next
Johns Hopkins will return to action on Friday, March 17 when the Blue Jays head to Annapolis to take on Navy (7 pm).