BALTIMORE, MD – Johns Hopkins closed the game with a 6-2 run defeat Gannon in the final game of the Salem Open Sunday afternoon. The Blue Jay improve to 6-3 on the season while the Knights fall to 4-6.
Gannon took an early 4-2 lead, led by a pair of Nikiforos Liantziris goals, with 43 seconds left in the first quarter.
Max Blecher had the final say of the quarter, scoring a six-on-five goal 31 seconds later to make it a 4-3 game after one.
Luke Mendelsohn and
Phillip Long scored back-to-back goals to open the second and stake the Blue Jays to a 5-4 lead.
Giacomo Peretti knotted the score at five with a penalty shot at 5:08. Hopkins answered with three in a row to push out to an 8-5 lead at the half. Gannon opened the third with a 3-1 spurt to cut the deficit to one with 6:06 on the clock. Long responded with two scores in an 81-second span to put JHU up 11-8. Liantziris responded with two of his own, just seven seconds apart, and just like that the lead was down to one with 4:04 to play in the third.
The Blue Jays got three consecutive goals, from Long,
Matthieu Giauque and Blecher, to push out to a 14-10 lead. The Knights weren't going away, using goals by Dominic Demeritte and Liantziris to trim the deficit to two with 4:41 to play. Hopkins took control from there as
Alec Baker scored twice in a 26-second span before a
Ben Lucas five-meter goal at 1:33 to seal the win.
Long paced the Blue Jays with four goals and an assist, while Blecher added a hat trick and Lucas notched three points (2g, 1a).
Luke Mendelsohn and Lucas also blocked two shots each.
Sebastian Isaacs finished with six saves and two steals.
Hopkins returns to action on Saturday, September 19 as the Blue Jays host George Washington. The home opener is scheduled for a 1:00 pm start at Barbara & Jerry Procton Pool.
