The Game
• Johns Hopkins (3-1) heads south for the first of three straight away from Homewood Field as the Blue Jays travel to North Carolina to take on the Tar Heels (2-0). The game will air live online on ACCNX (12 pm).
When Last We Saw Them
• Johns Hopkins picked up its third consecutive victory as the Blue Jays topped then 17th-ranked Loyola, 13-7, last Saturday at Homewood Field.
• North Carolina improved to 2-0 on the year as the Tar Heels won their second straight neutral site game as they topped Fairfield (19-8).
The Facts
• This is the 137th 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 1,019-371-15 (.731).
• Johns Hopkins is the only men's lacrosse program in the nation with 1,000 or more all-time victories. The Blue Jays picked up the program's 1,000th victory with an 11-10 win over Loyola on February 19, 2022.
• 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 in the top 10 in the nation in both major national polls as the Blue Jays are ranked ninth in the USILA Coaches Poll and ninth in the Inside Lacrosse Media Poll this week.
• North Carolina checks in at number 15 in the USILA Coaches Poll and the Tar Heels are also 15th in the Inside Lacrosse Media Poll.
Poll Notes of Interest'
• Including this week's poll, the USILA has issued 534 polls since the debut poll in 1973. Johns Hopkins has appeared in the top 20 in 514 of those 534 polls and has been ranked in the top 10 in 436 of the 534.
• The Johns Hopkins Athletic Communications office uses the USILA Poll to reflect JHU's official national ranking at the time of a game. The poll dates to 1973 and is the longest-running, continuous men's lacrosse poll in the nation.
Series History
• Johns Hopkins and North Carolina will be meeting for the 52nd time this week. The series dates to a 16-9 Johns Hopkins victory in the 1977 NCAA Quarterfinals.
• A complete look at the series history can be found on page 15.
Against the ACC
• This week's game against North Carolina will be the 236th all-time for Johns Hopkins against a team currently in the ACC.
• Johns Hopkins is 135-98-2 (.579) all-time against current ACC members.
• Johns Hopkins has played 53 all-time NCAA Tournament games against current ACC teams. The Blue Jays are 28-25 all-time in the NCAAs against the five teams currently competing in the ACC.
In February
• This week's game against North Carolina will be the 61st all-time for Johns Hopkins in the month of February.
• JHU is 39-21 (.650) all-time in games played in the month of February.
• Johns Hopkins played its first game in the month of February in 1998, didn't play again in February until 2004 and has now played at least one game in the opening month of the season every year since 2006.
On This Date
• This week's game will be just the second all-time for Johns Hopkins on February 24. The Blue Jays dropped their only other game played on this date in 2007 (8-7 vs. Albany).
Showing Our Depth
• The Blue Jay depth has been on display in the early season as 24 different players have appeared in all four games and 26 have appeared in three of the four.
• In the two games that Johns Hopkins has played that were decided by two goals or less, 27 players appeared for the Blue Jays (Denver, Georgetown).
• Of note, in the game against Georgetown, the Blue Jays used four long stick middies (Patrick Deans, Quintan Kilrain, Nick Kaufman, Luke Martin) and five short stick defensive middies (Brett Martin, Hunter Jaronski, Jakson Raposo, Brandon Aviles, Marcelo Arteaga). A week later against Loyola, six different SSDM's (Martin, Jaronski, Raposo, Aviles, Arteaga and Cody Ince) all saw action.
Attack Oriented
• Johns Hopkins has started the same three attackmen - Jacob Angelus, Garrett Degnon & Russell Melendez - in each of the first four games of the season.
• Through four games, the trio has combined for 26 goals and 17 assists for 43 points. Translated, they are averaging 6.5 goals and 4.25 assists for 10.75 points per game, which is an increase in their production from 2023.
• Last season, the trio also started together on attack and combined for 95 goals and 65 assists in 17 games (each player missed one game). Translated, they averaged 5.59 goals and 3.28 assists for 9.41 points per game in 2023.
Offensive Notes of Interest
• Since the start of the 2022 season, the Blue Jays are 20-4 when they score 12 or more goals.
• In 88 full quarters since the start of the 2023 season (does not include overtime periods), the Blue Jays have scored two or more goals in 69 quarters and four or more in 39 quarters.
• Johns Hopkins is averaging 12.25 goals per game this season with at least 11 goals scored in each outing thus far. This is the first time since 2017 that JHU has scored 11+ goals in each of the first four games of a season. The last time JHU scored 11+ in five straight games to open a season was in 1995.
• In four games, the Blue Jays have gotten goals from 11 different players and 12 different players have at least one point.
• Johns Hopkins averaged 12.56 goals per game in 2023. That output was the highest scoring average for the Blue Jays since 2015, when Hopkins averaged 13.0 goals per game. The 12.56 goals per game are also the second-best mark at JHU since 2004.
• As a team, Johns Hopkins shot 32.9% in 2023, a mark that ranked 14th in the nation. The 32.9% shooting percentage was the highest for JHU since 2015 (.331).
34 Straight For Degnon
• Graduate student attackman Garrett Degnon will carry a 34-game goal-scoring streak into this week's game at North Carolina after he scored three goals in the win last week against Loyola. The streak is currently the longest active streak in the nation.
• During his 34-game goal-scoring run, Degnon has scored 87 goals and has 27 multi-goal games and 21 games with 3+ goals to his credit.
• Degnon's 34-game run is also the longest by a Johns Hopkins player since a JHU-record-tying 37-game run by Ryan Brown from 2013-16. Brown and Terry Riordan (1992-95) co-hold the JHU record for most consecutive games having scored a goal.
Causing Trouble
• In four games thus far, the Blue Jays have 34 caused turnovers to their credit (8.5/game) with 10 coming in the 13-5 win against Towson, nine in the 11-9 win at Georgetown and 12 against Loyola. The 12 CTs against Loyola are tied for the second-most in program history and marked the 21st time in program history that the Blue Jays have been credited with 10 or more CTs in a game (CTs became an official stat in 2009).
• The 135 CTs the Blue Jays amassed last season are a JHU single-season record, while the 7.50 CTs/game narrowly missed the school-record of 7.63 (2022). Caused turnovers were first kept as an official statistic in 2009.
Defensive Notes of Interest
• In the season opener against Denver, the Blue Jays held the Pioneers scoreless for a stretch of 18:33 and have held their first four opponents scoreless for a period of 10 minutes or longer a total of nine times.
• In the last three games, the opposition has gone scoreless for a stretch of 10 minutes or longer eight times with four of those coming against Towson and two each against Georgetown and Loyola.
• Dating back to the start of the 2023 season, the Blue Jays have held their 22 opponents scoreless for a period of at least 10 minutes 33 different times - 24 of those have come in the last 14 games.
• The five goals the Blue Jays allowed against Towson were the fewest JHU has surrendered since Hopkins topped Ohio State, 6-5, in the 2018 Big Ten Semifinals.
• The 21 combined goals allowed in the last three games are the fewest JHU has allowed in a three-game stretch since early in the 2018 season, when the Blue Jays held Syracuse (7), UMBC (6) and Delaware (8) to a combined 21 over a three-game span.
• Including the 13-7 win at Georgetown, Johns Hopkins is 19-0 under head coach Peter Milliman and defensive coordinator Jamison Koesterer when holding the opposition to 10 goals or less.
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