ANNAPOLIS, MD – The Johns Hopkins men's lacrosse team outscored host Navy 4-1 in the final 8:30 of the game to turn an 8-8 tie into a 12-9 victory at Navy Marine Corps Memorial Stadium Friday night. The win is the second straight for the Blue Jays, who improve to 6-3 with the win, while the Midshipmen drop their fifth straight and fall to 3-5.
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In a game that featured six ties and three lead changes and neither team led by more than two until the final 90 seconds, it was the late spurt by the Blue Jays that proved to be the difference.
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Tied 8-8 after a Mac Haley goal in transition for Navy just 90 seconds into the final period, the Blue Jays took the lead for good at the 8:15 mark of the final quarter when junior
Ryan Evans grabbed a rebound off a Pat Ryan save and stuck his second goal of the game. Just 42 seconds later, freshman
Matt Collison swept the top of the box and picked the far corner on the run to give the Blue Jays a 10-8 lead with 7:34 on the fourth-quarter clock.
Still nursing the two-goal lead, the Blue Jays came up with a
Tim Marcille save and were looking to clear just over three minutes after Collison's goal, but Henry Tolker got a piece of Marcille's clearing attempt and fed a wide open Jack Flaherty to pull the Midshipmen within one at 10-9 with 4:20 remaining.
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The Blue Jays controlled the ensuing faceoff and Collison and junior
Johnathan Peshko executed a nifty two-man game on the wing that sprung Peshko for his second of the game and Collison then found
Russell Melendez alone on the crease with 1:22 left and Navy chasing for what proved to be the insurance goal.
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The first 30 minutes of the game had solved nothing as the teams battled to a 4-4 halftime tie. The Blue Jays led 3-1 just 11 minutes into the game as
Brendan Grimes, Evans and
Dylan Bauer all scored in the first 10:58 with only a Tolker extra-man goal for the Midshipmen during that time.
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Navy had the game even at 3-3 by the end of the first period as Haley scored from a tough angle with 2:33 remaining in the opening quarter and the Midshipmen capitalized on an unsettled situation in the final 10 seconds as Carter Ash fired one home off a feed from Xavier Arline.
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Haley made it a three-goal Midshipmen run when he scored on a 10-yard step-down from the wing at the 10:27 mark of the second quarter, but the Blue Jays answered 90 seconds later when
Jacob Angelus fed a cutting Peshko, who got to five yards before sticking one inside the far post.
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Marcille posted six saves of his 13 saves in the game in the second period (and eight in the first half) to keep things tight, while Ryan counted nine of his 13 saves on the night in the first half as well.
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Melendez and
Garrett Degnon sandwiched goals around a Max Hewitt goal in the first eight minutes of the third quarter to give the Blue Jays a 6-5 lead, but Navy answered with back-to-back goals form Arline and Sam Dracobly in a span of just under two minutes to grab a 7-6 lead.
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The Blue Jays would jump-start what turned out to be a game-ending 6-2 run over the final 17:04 of the game late in the third quarter when Degnon scored an extra-man goal and
Cameron Chauvette blew one to the top shelf in a 70-second span. That set the stage for a fourth quarter that saw the Blue Jays answer Haley's quarter-opening goal with the decisive 4-1 game-ending run that proved to be the different.
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Inside the Box Score – Johns Hopkins
• A balanced Blue Jay scoresheet saw eight different players score goals and nine different players register at least one point.  This is the fourth straight game that JHU has gotten goals from at least seven different players and the sixth time this season that at least nine players have registered a point.
• Johns Hopkins got three points from four different players as Melendez (2g, 1a), Grimes (1g, 2a), Collison (1g, 2a) and Angelus (3a) led the way offensively.
• Nine of JHU's 12 goals came from midfielders, including five from non-starters Evans (2g), Peshko (2g) and Chauvette (1).
• Graduate student
Alex Mazzone matched his career high with seven ground balls.
• The Blue Jay defense held Navy scoreless for a stretch of 16:16 from early in the second quarter until early in the third. This marks the 13
th time this season that JHU has held the opposition scoreless for a stretch of 10 minutes or longer.
• The first of his three assists on the night was the 100
th point of Angelus's career.
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Inside the Box Score - Navy
• Haley led the Midshipmen with three goals and Hewitt (1g, 2a) added a three-point night of his own.
• Navy won 16-of-25 faceoffs and held a slight advantage in ground balls (29-27).
• Anthony Ghobriel took all 25 faceoffs for the Midshipmen and had six ground balls to go along with his 16 faceoff wins.
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Up Next
Johns Hopkins will return to action on Sunday, March 19 when the Blue Jays welcome Delaware to Homewood Field (7 pm).
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