Game Notes | Hopkins-Syracuse Meet in Crown Lacrosse Classic 3/7/24
Blue Jays, Orange to Cap Four-Game Event on ESPN+
The Game
• Johns Hopkins (5-1) heads south for the third consecutive week as the Blue Jays travel to Charlotte, North Carolina to take on Syracuse (5-2) in the Crown Lacrosse Classic. The game will air live on ESPN+ (6:30 pm).
About the Crown Lacrosse Classic
• The Johns Hopkins-Syracuse game is the fourth of four games that comprise this year’s Crown Lacrosse Classic at American Legion Field in Charlotte.
• The full schedule of games for the event is listed below. Please note that the start time of games two, three and four will be contingent on the timely completion of the games prior and the possibility of a later start time for each exists.
2024 Crown Lacrosse Classic Game Schedule
Saturday, March 9 – American Legion Field (Charlotte, NC)
11 am – Wingate vs. Tampa (Division II – Men)
1:30 pm – Jacksonville vs. High Point (Division I – Men)
4 pm – Johns Hopkins vs. Stony Brook (Division I – Women)
6:30 pm – Johns Hopkins vs. Syracuse (Division I – Men)
Note – Teams listed second in the schedule above are the designated home teams
Some Crown History
• While this will be Johns Hopkins’ first appearance in the Crown Lacrosse Classic, it is not the first trip for head coach Peter Milliman.
• Milliman took his 2019 and 2020 Cornell teams to Charlotte to participate in the event. The third-ranked Big Red fell to sixth-ranked Penn State (19-13) and beat top-ranked Towson (18-11) in 2019, while then seventh-ranked Cornell topped second-ranked Penn State (18-17) in 2020. The 2020 game was played on March 8 and would be the last game for Milliman as the head coach of the Big Red as the COVID pandemic ended the 2020 season four days later. He was hired as the head coach at Johns Hopkins on April 27 of that year.
When Last We Saw Them
• Johns Hopkins picked up its fifth consecutive victory as the Blue Jays went on the road and topped then second-ranked Virginia, 16-14, in Charlottesville last Saturday.
• Syracuse improved to 5-2 on the year with a 19-13 victory at home against High Point last Saturday.
Poll Position
• Johns Hopkins is ranked in the top five in the nation in both major national polls as the Blue Jays are ranked fourth in the USILA Coaches Poll and second in the Inside Lacrosse Media Poll this week.
• Syracuse is ranked ninth this week by both the USILA and Inside Lacrosse.
Poll Notes of Interest
• Including this week’s poll, the USILA has issued 536 polls since the debut poll in 1973. Johns Hopkins has appeared in the top 20 in 516 of those 536 polls and has been ranked in the top 10 in 438 of the 536.
• The Johns Hopkins Athletic Communications office uses the USILA Poll to reflect JHU’s official national ranking at the time of a game. The poll dates to 1973 and is the longest-running, continuous men’s lacrosse poll in the nation.
Series History
• Johns Hopkins and Syracuse will be meeting for the 62nd time this week. The series dates to a 4-4 tie in 1921 and the Blue Jays are 32-28-1 against the Orange.
• A complete look at the series history can be found on page 16.
Against the ACC
• This week’s game against Syracuse will be the 238th all-time for Johns Hopkins against a team currently in the ACC and the third of three straight for the Jays as they played at North Carolina and at Virginia in the last two weeks.
• Including last week’s 16-14 win at Virginia, Johns Hopkins is 137-98-2 (.582) all-time against current ACC members.
• Johns Hopkins has played 53 all-time NCAA Tournament games against current ACC teams. The Blue Jays are 28-25 all-time in the NCAAs against the five teams currently competing in the ACC.
On This Date
• This week’s game will be the ninth all-time for Johns Hopkins on March 9. The Blue Jays are 8-1 all-time in games played on this date.
• The Blue Jays have split two all-time games against Syracuse on this date. The Blue Jays topped the Orange, 8-6, in the 1985 season opener at Homewood Field as Brian Wood scored four of the Jays’ eight goals to fuel the victory. Syracuse won the last game played between the two teams on this date in 2019 (14-10).
Attack Oriented
• Johns Hopkins has started the same three attackmen – Jacob Angelus, Garrett Degnon & Russell Melendez – in each of the first six games of the season.
• Through six games, the trio has combined for 36 goals and 23 assists for 59 points. Translated, they are averaging 6.0 goals and 3.83 assists for 9.82 points per game, which is a slight increase in their production from 2023.
• Last season, the trio also started together on attack and combined for 95 goals and 65 assists in 17 games (each player missed one game). Translated, they averaged 5.59 goals and 3.28 assists for 9.41 points per game in 2023.
Offensive Notes of Interest
• Since the start of the 2022 season, the Blue Jays are 22-4 when they score 12 or more goals.
• In 96 full quarters since the start of the 2023 season (does not include overtime periods), the Blue Jays have scored two or more goals in 77 quarters and four or more in 43 quarters.
• Johns Hopkins is averaging 13.0 goals per game this season (T21st in the nation) with at least 11 goals scored in each outing thus far. This is the first time since 1995 that JHU has scored 11+ goals in each of the first six games of a season. That year, JHU scored at least 11 goals in its first 13 games of the season.
• In six games, the Blue Jays have gotten goals from 14 different players and 18 different players have at least one point.
• Johns Hopkins averaged 12.56 goals per game in 2023. That output was the highest scoring average for the Blue Jays since 2015, when Hopkins averaged 13.0 goals per game. The 12.56 goals per game are also the second-best mark at JHU since 2004.
• As a team, Johns Hopkins shot 32.9% in 2023, a mark that ranked 14th in the nation. The 32.9% shooting percentage was the highest for JHU since 2015 (.331).
36 Straight For Degnon
• Graduate student attackman Garrett Degnon will carry a 36-game goal-scoring streak into this week’s game against Syracuse after he scored three goals in the win last week at Virginia. The streak is currently the longest active streak in the nation.
• During his 36-game goal-scoring run, Degnon has scored 92 goals and has 29 multi-goal games and 22 games with 3+ goals to his credit.
• Degnon’s 36-game run is also the longest by a Johns Hopkins player since a JHU-record-tying 37-game run by Ryan Brown from 2013-16. Brown and Terry Riordan (1992-95) co-hold the JHU record for most consecutive games having scored a goal.
Collison, Peshko Net Four
• Senior Johnathan Peshko and sophomore Matt Collison both netted four goals (and one assist) in last week’s 16-14 win at Virginia. The four goals matched Peshko’s career high and were a personal best for Collison.
• Peshko and Collison are the first pair of Hopkins midfielders to score 4+ goals in the same game since March 27, 1999, when Conor Denihan (5) and Matt O’Kelly (4) turned the trick in a 16-15 win over, ironically, Virginia.
• Since 1981, there have been just five instances where Johns Hopkins has had two midfielders score four or more goals in the same game.
Strength of Schedule
• The Blue Jays’ 13 regular season opponents are currently a combined 56-17 (.767), which ranks as the highest cumulative opponent winning percentage in the nation (does not include results against Johns Hopkins).
• Using this week’s USILA Poll as a gauge, the Blue Jays will play nine games against teams ranked in the top 20 in the nation. The nine include Denver (1st), Virginia (6th), Maryland (7th), Syracuse (9th), Penn State (10th), Georgetown (11th), Michigan (12th), Rutgers (16th), and North Carolina (18th). In addition, Towson and Ohio State are listed as receiving votes.
Causing Trouble
• In six games thus far, the Blue Jays have 52 caused turnovers to their credit (8.67/game) with 10 coming in the 13-5 win against Towson, nine in the 11-9 win at Georgetown, 12 against Loyola and 11 at Virginia. The 12 CTs against Loyola are tied for the second-most in program history, while the 11 at UVA marked the 22nd time in program history that the Blue Jays have been credited with 10 or more CTs in a game (CTs became an official stat in 2009).
• The 135 CTs the Blue Jays amassed last season are a JHU single-season record, while the 7.50 CTs/game narrowly missed the school-record of 7.63 (2022). Caused turnovers were first kept as an official statistic in 2009.
Defensive Notes of Interest
• The Blue Jays have held their first six opponents scoreless for a period of 10 minutes or longer a total of 12 times.
• In the last five games, the opposition has gone scoreless for a stretch of 10 minutes or longer 11 times with four of those coming against Towson and two each against Georgetown, Loyola and North Carolina.
• Dating back to the start of the 2023 season, the Blue Jays have held their 24 opponents scoreless for a period of at least 10 minutes 36 different times – 27 of those have come in the last 17 games.
• The five goals the Blue Jays allowed against Towson were the fewest JHU has surrendered since Hopkins topped Ohio State, 6-5, in the 2018 Big Ten Semifinals.
• Including the recent 13-9 win at North Carolina, Johns Hopkins is 19-0 under head coach Peter Milliman and defensive coordinator Jamison Koesterer when holding the opposition to 10 goals or less.