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BALTIMORE, MD — The final chapter in the book about the 2016 Johns Hopkins men’s lacrosse season won’t be written for quite some time. When it is, today’s 11-10 overtime victory against third-ranked Syracuse may take a bit more space then the rest of the chapters.
The Blue Jays twice trailed their long-time rival by four in the first 20 minutes of the game, were down by three with less than 19 minutes left and still found themselves down by two with less than three minutes on the clock.
There was also the noticeable absence of head coach Dave Pietramala, who missed the game due to an infection in his lower back.
Johns Hopkins (4-2) faced all of that adversity and grabbed the key overtime victory by scoring twice in the final 2:22 to force overtime and then won on a rebound goal by junior Wilkins Dismuke 1:51 into overtime to lift the Blue Jays to their second consecutive win against a team ranked in the top 10.
Trailing 10-8 after a two-goal Syracuse spurt turned an 8-8 tie into a 10-8 Orange lead, the Blue Jays got an unassisted goal on an ally dodge by junior John Crawley with 2:22 to play to make it a one-goal game.
Syracuse faceoff specialist Ben Williams was called for his third violation of the second half on the ensuing faceoff to give the Blue Jays a man advantage. Hopkins nearly turned the ball over on the extra-man, but managed to keep possession and worked out of a Syracuse timeout with 1:16 on the clock.
Just 38 seconds later, the Blue Jays’ two leading scorers, Shack Stanwick and Ryan Brown, teamed to force overtime as Stanwick found Brown alone on the wing and Brown does what he does best — blister one into the net to tie the game.
Sophomore Hunter Moreland won the opening faceoff in overtime and Blue Jays worked for an ally dodge by freshman Drew Supinski, who got his hands free and ripped one that Syracuse goalie Warren Hill saved, but didn’t control. Dismuke was in the right place at the right time and picked the rebound out of the air and fired into an open net to give the Blue Jays their second straight one-goal win against the Orange.
A one-goal win did not appear to be in the cards for the Blue Jays early on as Syracuse built a 2-0 lead at the end of the first quarter and doubled that to 4-0 in the first 3:17 of the second when Dylan Donahue and Matt Lane scored.
Supinski got one back just 34 seconds after Lane’s extra-man strike, but Sergio Salcido was at the tail end of some quick ball movement by Syracuse and beat Brock Turnbaugh with a sidearm shot from 10 yards.
The four–goal deficit was down to three by halftime as Hopkins scored three of the final five goals in a second quarter that saw the teams combine for nine goals on just 14 total shots. Dismuke and Supinski scored consecutive goals to make it 5-3 with 5:27 left before the half, only to have Jordan Evans and Nick Mariano sandwich goals around a Cody Radziewicz tally for Johns Hopkins in the final 4:19 to make it 7-4 at the half.
Both defenses buckled down in the third quarter and neither team managed to find the back of the net for the first 11 minutes of the period. As it turned out, it was a Syracuse native who jump-started the Blue Jays as Radziewicz, who grew up in the Syracuse suburbs, completed his first career hat trick with back-to-back goals in a span of 42 seconds late in the period.
When the Blue Jays drew an extra-man chance late in the period, sophomore sharp-shooter Patrick Fraser made the Orange pay with a goal with just 23 seconds left in the quarter to pull the Blue Jays even for the first time in the game.
The momentum the Blue Jays gained with their three-goal run was gone 11 seconds later as Joe Gillis scored off the ensuring faceoff to give Syracuse an 8-7 lead entering the fourth quarter.
Hopkins got an extra-man goal from Fraser just 32 seconds into the final period to draw even again, but Syracuse answered with a Mariano goal in a timer-on situation less than two minutes later and Salcido added one at the 6:01 mark with a perfectly placed left-handed shot on the run into the top far corner.
That lead held until Crawley got just enough separation on his dodge with 2:22 remaining to beat Hill to the far post and jump-start a wild ending that included Brown’s game-tying goal and Dismuke’s game-winner.
The Blue Jays got eight of their 11 goals on the day from their midfield, which was led by the first career hat trick from Radziewicz and two goals each from Supinski and Fraser. Dismuke added the two goals, while Brown (1g, 1a) and Stanwick (2a) also posted multi-point games.
Turnbaugh finished with 10 saves in the win and Moreland won 7-of-12 faceoffs, including the crucial one in overtime, to help fuel the win.
Syracuse got a hat trick from Mariano, two goals from Salcido and one goal and two assists from Donahue. Williams won 13-of-24 faceoffs and grabbed seven ground balls, while Hill posted five saves for the Orange.
NOTES: The lower-ranked team has won four of the last five in the Johns Hopkins-Syracuse series • Today’s game was the 13th one-goal game in the series in the last 28 meetings • Brown extended his point-scoring streak to 40 games and Stanwick extended his to 24 games • Brown became the 14th player in school history to reach 175 career points and is now 14th on JHU’s career point-scoring list (176) • Johns Hopkins improved to 29-25-1 all-time against Syracuse and 129-82-2 all-time against teams currently in the ACC.