The Game
• Johns Hopkins (9-3, 4-0 B1G) closes the regular season at home as the Blue Jays welcome Maryland (8-3, 3-1 B1G) to Homewood Field for the 127th renewal of the greatest rivalry in college lacrosse. The game will air live on ESPNU (4 pm).
When Last We Saw Them
• Johns Hopkins picked up its fourth consecutive B1G victory as the Blue Jays rallied for an 11-10 overtime win at Ohio State on Sunday night. The win locked up no worse than a share of the Big Ten regular season title for the Jays.
• Maryland set up this week's showdown with the Blue Jays with an 11-6 win at home against Rutgers last Saturday night.
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 1,025-373-15 (.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 five in the nation in both major national polls as the Blue Jays are 3rd in the USILA Coaches Poll and 3rd in the Inside Lacrosse Media Poll this week.
• The NCAA recently began releasing its RPI rankings. Through games of April 14, Johns Hopkins has the #3 RPI in the nation.
• Maryland joins the Blue Jays as a consensus top five team this week as the Terps check in at 5th in the USILA Coaches Poll and 5th in the Inside Lacrosse Media Poll. In addition, Maryland is also #6 in the RPI.
Poll Notes of Interest
• Including this week's poll, the USILA has issued 542 polls since the debut poll in 1973. Johns Hopkins has appeared in the top 20 in 522 of those 542 polls and has been ranked in the top 10 in 443 of the 542.
• 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 Maryland will be meeting for the 127th time this week. The series dates to a 10-0 Johns Hopkins victory in 1895 and the Blue Jays are 75-50-1 all-time against the Terrapins.
• A complete look at the series history can be found on pages 17 & 18.
Hopkins-Maryland Top Five
• This week's game features the third-ranked Blue Jays and the fifth-ranked Terrapins in the latest top five matchup in series history.
• Since the USILA began issuing rankings in 1973, this week's game will mark the 27th time the two teams have met when both have been ranked in the top five.
• Johns Hopkins has won 17 of the 26 all-time games played between the two teams when both were ranked in the top five in the nation at the time of the game.
On This Date
• This week's game will be the 12th all-time for Johns Hopkins on April 20.\
• The Blue Jays are 9-1 all-time on this date, including 1-1 against Maryland. JHU topped the Terps, 8-7 in overtime, on this date in 1985, while Maryland earned an 11-8 win over the Blue Jays in 1991.
What Can Happen
• Johns Hopkins is 4-0 in Big Ten play for the first time since the league was formed in 2015 and the Jays are the only team in the league that is currently 4-0 entering the last week of the regular season.
• Hopkins and Maryland have secured byes into the semifinals of the upcoming Big Ten Tournament. The winner of this week's game will lock up the top seed in the tournament. The loser will earn the number two seed in the tournament.
Offensive Notes of Interest
• Since the start of the 2022 season, the Blue Jays are 24-5 when they score 12 or more goals.
• This season, in 48 full quarters (does not include overtime periods), the Blue Jays have scored two or more goals in 40 quarters and four or more in 22 quarters.
• Johns Hopkins is averaging 12.33 goals per game this season (28th in the nation) with at least 11 goals scored in 10 of 12 games thus far.
• In 12 games, the Blue Jays have gotten goals from 15 different players and 20 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).
42 Straight For Degnon
• Graduate student attackman Garrett Degnon will carry a school-record 42-game goal-scoring streak into this week's game against Maryland after he scored three goals in the game against Ohio State. The streak is currently tied for longest active streak in the nation.
• During his 42-game goal-scoring run, Degnon has scored 113 goals and has 35 multi-goal games and 28 games with 3+ goals to his credit.
• Degnon's 42-game run is the longest in school history after he broke the previous record of 37 against Navy. Terry Riordan originally set the mark at 37 games from 1992-95 and Ryan Brown matched that with a 37-game run from 2013-16.
• The 42-game goal-scoring run for Degnon and the 37-game runs for Brown and Riordan are the only three goal-scoring streaks of 30+ games in Johns Hopkins history.
Collison With Back-to-Back Overtime Winners
• Sophomore Matt Collison has scored the game-winning goal in each of Hopkins' last two games as he stuck the deciding goal in a 9-8 win against Penn State (April 6) and followed that with the winning dagger in an 11-10 win at Ohio State (April 14).
• Collison is the first Johns Hopkins player to score a goal in overtime in back-to-back games since 2009, when Brian Christopher beat Loyola in the regular season finale and then scored the winner against Brown in the first round of the NCAA Tournament a week later.
JHU Ties OT Record
• Last week's overtime game at Ohio State was the fourth of the season for Johns Hopkins. This ties the program record for most overtime games in one season. The Blue Jays also played four overtime games in 2005, 2009 and 2016.
Strength of Schedule
• The Blue Jays' 13 regular season opponents are currently a combined 97-46 for a win percentage of 67.8%. This gives Johns Hopkins the second-highest cumulative opponent winning percentage in the nation (among all games on a team's 2024 schedule).
• The 12 opponents JHU has played thus far are currently a combined 89-43 for a win percentage of 67.4%. This also gives Johns Hopkins the second-highest cumulative opponent winning percentage among teams played to-date in the nation.
• Using this week's USILA Poll as a gauge, the Blue Jays will play seven games against teams ranked in the top 20 in the nation. The seven include Virginia (4th), Maryland (5th), Denver (6th), Syracuse (7th), Penn State (10th), Georgetown (11th), and Towson (16th). In addition, Michigan, Ohio State, Rutgers, Loyola, Navy and North Carolina are also listed as receiving votes. Translation ... every one of Johns Hopkins' 13 regular season opponents appears in this week's USILA Poll.
Causing Trouble
• Johns Hopkins tied the program record with 14 caused turnovers in the recent 9-8 overtime win against Penn State - this came one week after notching 13 CTs in a win against Michigan.
• In 12 games thus far, the Blue Jays have 106 caused turnovers to their credit (8.83/game) with 10 coming in the 13-5 win against Towson, nine in the 11-9 win at Georgetown, 12 against Loyola and 11 at Virginia to go along with the efforts against Michigan (13) and Penn State (14). The 14 CTs against Penn State marked the 24th 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).
• JHU currently ranks 21st in the nation - and third in the Big Ten - with its 8.83 caused turnovers per game.
• 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
• The Blue Jays have held their first 12 opponents scoreless for a period of 10 minutes or longer a total of 22 times. 13 of those 22 streaks have been 12+ minutes in length.
• In the last 11 games, the opposition has gone scoreless for a stretch of 10 minutes or longer 21 times with four of those coming against Towson and two each against Georgetown, Loyola, North Carolina, Rutgers, Michigan, Penn State and Ohio State.
• Dating back to the start of the 2023 season, the Blue Jays have held their 30 opponents scoreless for a period of at least 10 minutes 46 different times - 36 of those have come in the last 23 games.
• This season, in 48 full quarters (does not include overtime periods), the Blue Jays have allowed two or less goals in 29 quarters and four or more in just eight quarters.
• 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.
• Johns Hopkins is 22-1 under head coach Peter Milliman and defensive coordinator Jamison Koesterer when holding the opposition to 10 goals or less.
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