ITHACA, NY – Much has been made of the last time Johns Hopkins and Cornell had met in men's lacrosse prior to Saturday's NCAA First Round matchup in Ithaca.
For those who somehow don't know, that meeting came 39 years ago, in the 1987 NCAA Championship game. That ended with a one-goal Blue Jay victory (11-10).
There's more to that story than you may know.
Fast forward to Saturday, and the first thing I noticed when I arrived at my seat in the press box was my seat number – 51. Those who know, know.
The number 51 belonged to the beloved Freddy Smith, who coached the Blue Jay defense to legendary performances over decades as an assistant coach.
Smith didn't see that Hopkins-Cornell game in person in 1987. Battling terminal cancer, he was too sick to stay at Rutgers – site of the Final Four that year - after the '87 Blue Jays topped Maryland in the semifinals. He watched the title game against Cornell two days later from home and passed away less than a month later.
Fast forward again to Saturday. The Blue Jay defense turned in a performance that I'm certain has Smith smiling down as Hopkins held Cornell to just two goals and 11 shots after halftime to fuel a dramatic 9-8 come-from-behind overtime victory that propels the Blue Jays into next week's NCAA Quarterfinals.
After dropping 9-of-10 first-half faceoffs, the Blue Jays won 6-of-9 in the second half and then grabbed the all-important one to open the overtime period.
Six shots, one extra-man and the most ridiculous ground ball you'll ever see later, it was
Jimmy Ayers connecting from five yards out off a feed from
Matt Collison that ended things.
Down 6-3 at the half, the Blue Jays needed less than six minutes to pull even for the first time since it was 0-0. A
Hunter Chauvette snipe from the wing just 58 ticks after the break was followed two minutes later by a
Chuck Rawson goal off a feed from Collison. Less than three minutes after that, Collison isolated from behind the goal and came topside to even things up.
While the offense got going early in the second half, so did the Blue Jay defense. After allowing the six first-half goals, the unit would hold Cornell off the board for 21 minutes to open the second half.
Cornell would wrap AJ Nikolic and Brian Luzzi goals around Rawson and Ayers goals in a frantic six-minute span midway through a fourth quarter that would eventually end with the teams tied at eight. To give credit where it's due, Cornell's Matthew Tully may have been the player most responsible for there even being an extra session as he turned away four Blue Jay offerings in the final 15 minutes, including a stop on Collison in the final seconds of regulation.
Reece DiCicco collected his third ground ball of the game to open the extra period, and
Luke Martin preserved possession – and gave the Blue Jays an extra-man attempt – when he slid past a Cornell attackman and scooped up a ground ball in one motion while drawing a push.
The Blue Jays (10-5) didn't capitalize on the extra-man opportunity, but Collison took possession after a restart behind the goal with 85 seconds on the overtime clock; 10 seconds later, it was over.
The Big Red had doubled up the Blue Jays at the half as they used an extra-man goal in the final two seconds of the second quarter to polish off the opening 30 minutes with a 6-3 lead.
The Blue Jays trailed just 3-2 after the first quarter after a
Brooks English extra-man goal for the Blue Jays with 47.1 seconds remaining, but the Big Red scored twice in the first four minutes of the second quarter to grab a 5-2 lead.
Both Cornell (11-5) goals early in the second quarter narrowly beat the shot clock with Rowyn Nurry sticking both. He worked topside to the left of Blue Jay goalie
Oran Gelinas before spinning back and picking the far post with 13:38 on the clock, then got inside his defender on the wing and scored on the run just over two minutes later to give the Big Red a 5-2 cushion.
The 5-2 score held for nearly seven minutes before the Blue Jays capitalized on the substitution game to spring freshman
David Disque, who split the defense and scored from the slot to make it a two-goal game. Cornell's Willem Firth would add the late extra-man goal with 1.6 seconds left on the first-half clock to account for the 6-3 halftime score.
Two goals and 11 shots is all the Big Red would muster against the Blue Jay defense in the second half and it would be 21 minutes after Firth scored for Cornell to solve the Blue Jay defense again.
Something tells me Freddy Smith enjoyed this one.
Johns Hopkins Notes of Interest
• Martin (5 GBs, 5 CTs) and
Carson Brown (6 GBs, 2 CTs) combined to hold Cornell's dynamic tandem of Firth and Ryan Goldstein to a combined two goals and two assists. They entered the game with 84 goals and 60 assists on the year.
•
Joe Hobot went 8-of-16 at the X with four GBs and one CT; he was 7-of-10 in the second half and overtime.
• Rawson (2g, 1a), Collison (1g, 2a) and
Charlie Iler (1g, 2a) paced the Blue Jay offense with three points apiece.
• The win marks the eighth time Johns Hopkins has eliminated the defending national champion from the NCAA Tournament.
• Johns Hopkins head coach
Peter Milliman is 4-0 all-time in first round games in the NCAA Tournament, including 3-0 at Johns Hopkins.
• JHU is 10-2 all-time against the number seven seed in the tournament, including 2-1 as an unseeded team in a first round matchup.
Cornell Notes of Interest
• Tully finished with 17 saves, including seven in the second half and two in overtime.
• Jack Cascadden went 12-of-19 at the X with 11 GBs.
• Nurry finished with a game-high goals, while Nikolic scored twice.
Up Next
Johns Hopkins will face the winner of the Jacksonville-Notre Dame game in next Saturday's NCAA Quarterfinals at Hofstra. The time of the game will be announced on Sunday night.
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