June 12, 2002

BALTIMORE, Md. -- Johns Hopkins men's lacrosse standout Nick Murtha (Manhasset, NY/Manhasset) and second-year coach Dave Pietramala have added more honors to the already impressive list of awards garnered by the Blue Jays during or after the 2002 season. Murtha has been named the 2002 recipient of the Ensign C. Markland Kelly Award as the Outstanding Goalie in NCAA Division I Lacrosse, while Pietramala has been named the 2002 F. Morris Touchstone Award winner as the National Coach-of-the-Year.

Murtha enjoyed a storybook season as the Blue Jays' starting goalie. He posted an 8.41 goals against average and a .597 save percentage while starting all 14 games. Despite having never started a game in his career prior to this season, he earned First Team STX/USILA All-America honors as he helped guide the Blue Jays to a 12-2 record and a trip to the NCAA Semifinals. He is the ninth Johns Hopkins goalie to earn the Kelly Award and the first since Brian Carcaterra in 1998. The nine players who have won the award have combined to win it 14 times. No other school has earned the award more eight times.

In just his second season as the head coach at Johns Hopkins, Pietramala guided a team consisting mostly of freshmen and sophomores to the top seed in the 2002 NCAA Tournament, the number one ranking in the final regular-season poll and the 12-2 record. This was the first time since 1995 that Johns Hopkins ended the regular season ranked number one and it was also the first time since 1995 that JHU earned the top seed in the NCAA Tournament. The 12 wins the Blue Jays posted were the most for a JHU team since 1995 as well.

This is the second time Pietramala has been named National Coach-of-the-Year as he also garnered the honor two years ago at Cornell. He is just the fifth person in history to earn the award more than once and he is the first person in history to earn the award at two different schools. In addition, he is just the second Johns Hopkins coach to earn the award. Legendary coach Bob Scott won the award three times (1965, 1968, 1972) during his 20-year career. Pietramala remains the only person in the history of college lacrosse to earn National Player-of-the-Year honors (1989) and National Coach-of-the-Year honors (2000, 2002).

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