COLLEGEVILLE, PA – An Alex Gardner first-half goal, six John Ghanem saves and a huge first-half defensive save helped the Johns Hopkins men's soccer team cap a remarkable four-game regular-season-ending run with a 1-0 victory at Ursinus at blustery Patterson Field on Friday night.
 
It was just 13 days ago that the Blue Jays were on the outside looking in at the Centennial Conference Tournament.  A 4-0 win at F&M, a tie against eighth-ranked Dickinson, a win against previously unbeaten Muhlenberg and Friday's win at Ursinus later and the Blue Jays are not only in the tournament, they still have a chance to earn a first-round bye.  More on the tournament later.
 
The Blue Jays (6-6-6, 4-2-3 CC) had the strong wind at their backs in the first half and used that to their advantage in collecting nine of the game's 12 shots in the opening 45 minutes, but they didn't solve Ursinus goalie Josiah Moore until the 36^th minutes.  Arnav Patel gained possession of a poor clearing attempt into the wind by the Bears and quickly pushed forward before finding Gardner posted up near the top of the box.  Gardner quickly turned towards the middle and fired a shot to the far post that found the back of the net to give the Blue Jays the one-goal lead.
 
For his part, Ghanem posted two of his six saves before the break to help Johns Hopkins carry the 1-0 lead into halftime and the Blue Jays got the huge defensive save from Sean Vaghedi, who kept a ball that had eluded Ghanem near the top of the box in the 26^th minute out of the goal to keep things scoreless.
 
Despite playing into the stiff wind in the second half, the Blue Jays had a number of chances to double their lead.  Gardner went high with pace from 18 yards out, but Moore was able to punch his offering over the bar, while Brendan Listzwan's chip from the wing just missed the far post 90 seconds after Gardner was turned away.  Listzwan was stopped by Moore from 12 yards out just 80 seconds later and Moore was equal to a Vaghedi shot from close-range seven minutes after that.
 
Down the stretch, it was Ursinus (4-11-2, 1-8 CC) using the wind to its advantage to outshoot the Blue Jays 7-1 over the final 16 minutes, only to have Ghanem come up with four saves to help seal the victory.
 
Now, back to the Centennial Conference Tournament.  With tonight's win, the Blue Jays have 15 points and sit alone in second place heading into Saturday's final three regular season league games.  There are a number of different scenarios still in play that could land the Blue Jays anywhere from second to fourth in the final standings.  Officially, the Blue Jays can finish no worse then tied for third, but tie-breakers could drop them to the number four seed in the tournament.
 
In its simplest form, the path to the number two seed for the Blue Jays would require Washington College and Gettysburg to play to a tie on Saturday, while Swarthmore would need to tie or beat Haverford.
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