The Game
•  Johns Hopkins (4-1) heads south for the second consecutive week as the Blue Jays travel to Charlottesville to take on second-ranked Virginia (3-0).  The game will air live on the ACC Network (1 pm).

When Last We Saw Them
•  Johns Hopkins picked up its fourth consecutive victory as the Blue Jays went on the road and topped 15th-ranked North Carolina, 13-9, in Chapel Hill last Saturday.
• Virginia remained perfect on the year as the Cavaliers jumped to a 10-3 lead and never looked back in a 14-8 win over Ohio State on Sunday.

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 1,020-371-15 (.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 seventh in the USILA Coaches Poll and eighth in the Inside Lacrosse Media Poll this week.
• Virginia is the consensus number two team in the nation as the Cavaliers are ranked second in the nation by both the USILA and Inside Lacrosse.

Poll Notes of Interest
• Including this week's poll, the USILA has issued 535 polls since the debut poll in 1973.  Johns Hopkins has appeared in the top 20 in 515 of those 535 polls and has been ranked in the top 10 in 437 of the 535.
• 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 Virginia will be meeting for the 97th time this week.  The series dates to a 9-0 Johns Hopkins victory in 1904 and the Blue Jays are 61-34-1 against the Cavaliers.
• A complete look at the series history can be found on page 15.

Against the ACC
• This week's game against Virginia will be the 237th all-time for Johns Hopkins against a team currently in the ACC and the second of three straight for the Jays as they played at North Carolina last week and play Syracuse in Charlotte (NC) next week.
• Including last week's 13-9 win at UNC, Johns Hopkins is 136-98-2 (.581) 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.

On This Date
• This week's game will be the sixth all-time for Johns Hopkins on March 2.  The Blue Jays are 3-2 all-time in games played on this date and have won their last three March 2nd games.
• All five of JHU's previous games on this date came against Princeton with the Jays picking up wins against the Tigers in 2022 (8-5), 2012 (10-8) and 2019 (14-12).

Flipping the Calendar to March
• After posting a 4-1 record in February, the Blue Jays will flip the calendar to March with this week's game at Virginia.
• A year ago, the Blue Jays went 5-1 in the month of March and won their final four games in the month with victories against Syracuse, Navy, Delaware and Michigan to close things out.
• The only loss the Blue Jays suffered in the month of March last season was an 18-13 setback to then top-ranked Virginia.

Attack Oriented
•  Johns Hopkins has started the same three attackmen - Jacob Angelus, Garrett Degnon & Russell Melendez - in each of the first five games of the season.
• Through five games, the trio has combined for 31 goals and 21 assists for 52 points.  Translated, they are averaging 6.2 goals and 4.2 assists for 10.4 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 21-4 when they score 12 or more goals.
• In 92 full quarters since the start of the 2023 season (does not include overtime periods), the Blue Jays have scored two or more goals in 73 quarters and four or more in 41 quarters.
• Johns Hopkins is averaging 12.4 goals per game this season with at least 11 goals scored in each outing thus far.  This is the first time since 1995 that JHU has scored 11+ goals in each of the first five games of a season.  That year, JHU scored at least 11 goals in its first 13 games of the season.
• In five games, the Blue Jays have gotten goals from 13 different players and 16 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).

35 Straight For Degnon
•  Graduate student attackman Garrett Degnon will carry a 35-game goal-scoring streak into this week's game at Virginia after he scored two goals in the win last week at North Carolina.  The streak is currently the longest active streak in the nation.
• During his 35-game goal-scoring run, Degnon has scored 89 goals and has 28 multi-goal games and 21 games with 3+ goals to his credit.
• Degnon's 35-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.

Strength of Schedule
• The Blue Jays' 13 regular season opponents combined to post a 118-85 (.581) record in 2023 with JHU's eight non-conference opponents rolling up a 74-52 (.587) record.
• Using this week's USILA Poll as a gauge, the Blue Jays will play 10 games against teams ranked in the top 20 in the nation.  The 10 include Virginia (2nd), Maryland (3rd), Denver (4th). Syracuse (8th), Michigan (11th), Penn State (12th), Georgetown (13th), Rutgers (16th), North Carolina (19th) and Ohio State (20th).  In addition, Towson and Loyola are listed as receiving votes, which means 12 of Johns Hopkins' 13 regular season opponents appear in this week's USILA Poll.

Causing Trouble
• In five games thus far, the Blue Jays have 41 caused turnovers to their credit (8.2/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 five opponents scoreless for a period of 10 minutes or longer a total of 11 times.
• In the last four games, the opposition has gone scoreless for a stretch of 10 minutes or longer 10 times with four of those coming against Towson and two each against Georgetown, Loyola and North Carolina.
• Dating back to the start of the 2023 season,  the Blue Jays have held their 23 opponents scoreless for a period of at least 10 minutes 35 different times - 26 of those have come in the last 16 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 30 combined goals allowed in the last four games are the fewest JHU has allowed in a four-game stretch since early in the 2018 season, when the Blue Jays held Princeton (9), Syracuse (7), UMBC (6) and Delaware (8) to a combined 30 over a four-game span.
• Including the 13-9 win at North Carolina, Johns Hopkins is 19-0 under head coach Peter Milliman and defensive coordinator Jamison Koesterer when holding the opposition to 10 goals or less.

Additional Notes of Interest in PDF Version