Game Notes | Blue Jays, Buckeyes Under the Lights on BTN 4/11/24

The Game
•  Johns Hopkins (8-3, 3-0 B1G) heads to Ohio State (6-6, 1-2 B1G) for its final regular season road game of the 2024 season.  The game will air live on BTN (7 pm).

When Last We Saw Them
•  Johns Hopkins picked up its third consecutive B1G victory as the Blue Jays rallied for a 9- 8 overtime win against Penn State last Saturday at Homewood Field
• Ohio State dropped a tight 8-7 decision on the road at Maryland last Saturday afternoon.

The Facts
•  This is the 137th season of Johns Hopkins men’s lacrosse.  JHU first fielded a team in 1883.
•  Johns Hopkins enters this week’s game with an all-time record of 1,024-373-15 (.731).
• Johns Hopkins is the only men’s lacrosse program in the nation with 1,000 or more all-time victories.  The Blue Jays picked up the program’s 1,000th victory with an 11-10 win over Loyola on February 19, 2022.
•  JHU owns 44 national championships with nine NCAA titles, 29 USILA titles and six ILA crowns to its credit.

Poll Position
• Johns Hopkins is ranked in the top five in the nation in both major national polls as the Blue Jays are 5th in the USILA Coaches Poll and 3rd in the Inside Lacrosse Media Poll this week.
• The NCAA has also begun releasing its RPI rankings.  Through games of April 9, Johns Hopkins has the #2 RPI in the nation.
• Ohio State is listed as receiving votes in both the USILA Coaches Poll and the Inside Lacrosse Media Poll this week.  Ohio State checks in at 16th in the most recent RPI listing.

Poll Notes of Interest
• Including this week’s poll, the USILA has issued 541 polls since the debut poll in 1973.  Johns Hopkins has appeared in the top 20 in 521 of those 541 polls and has been ranked in the top 10 in 442 of the 541.
• 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 Ohio State will be meeting for the 18th time this week.  The series dates to a 17-8 Johns Hopkins victory in 1999 and the Blue Jays are 10-7 all-time against the Buckeyes.
• A complete look at the series history can be found on page 17.

On This Date
• This week’s game will be the 17th game Johns Hopkins has played on April 14.  The Blue Jays are 11-5 all-time on this date.
• In JHU’s last game on this date, the Blue Jays dropped a 14-13 decision to Ohio State in 2019.
• JHU jump-started a nine-game season-ending winning streak on this date in 2007 with an 8-7 win in the pouring rain at Maryland.  A Paul Rabil goal won it that night for the Blue Jays.

What Can Happen
•  Johns Hopkins is 3-0 in Big Ten play for the first time since the league was formed in 2015 and the Jays are the only team in the league that is currently 3-0.
• A win this week for JHU will lock up a bye into the semifinals in the upcoming Big Ten Tournament.
• A Johns Hopkins win this week coupled with a Maryland loss to Rutgers would secure the outright B1G regular-season title and the top seed in the upcoming Big Ten Tournament for the Blue Jays.

Offensive Notes of Interest
• Since the start of the 2022 season, the Blue Jays are 24-5 when they score 12 or more goals.
• This season, in 44 full quarters (does not include overtime periods), the Blue Jays have scored two or more goals in 37 quarters and four or more in 20 quarters.
• Johns Hopkins is averaging 12.45 goals per game this season (26th in the nation) with at least 11 goals scored in nine of 11 games thus far.
• In 11 games, the Blue Jays have gotten goals from 15 different players and 20 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).

41 Straight For Degnon
•  Graduate student attackman Garrett Degnon will carry a school-record 41-game goal-scoring streak into this week’s game against Ohio State after he scored three goals in the game against Penn State.  The streak is currently tied for longest active streak in the nation.
• During his 41-game goal-scoring run, Degnon has scored 110 goals and has 34 multi-goal games and 27 games with 3+ goals to his credit.
• Degnon’s 41-game run is the longest in school history after he broke the previous record of 37 against Navy.  Terry Riordan originally set the mark at 37 games from 1992-95 and Ryan Brown matched that with a 37-game run from 2013-16.
• The 41-game goal-scoring run for Degnon and the 37-game runs for Brown and Riordan are the only three goal-scoring streaks of 30+ games in Johns Hopkins history.

Strength of Schedule
• The Blue Jays’ 13 regular season opponents are currently a combined 91-40 for a win percentage of 69.5%.  This gives Johns Hopkins the highest cumulative opponent winning percentage in the nation (among all games on a team’s 2024 schedule).
• The 11 opponents JHU has played thus far are currently a combined 78-31 for a win percentage of 71.6%.  This gives Johns Hopkins the highest cumulative opponent winning percentage among teams played to-date in the nation.
• Using this week’s USILA Poll as a gauge, the Blue Jays will play seven games against teams ranked in the top 20 in the nation.  The seven include Virginia (2nd), Maryland (4th), Georgetown (6th), Denver (7th), Syracuse (9th), Penn State (11th) and Towson (20th).  In addition, Michigan, Rutgers, Ohio State and Navy  are also listed as receiving votes.

Causing Trouble
• Johns Hopkins tied the program record with 14 caused turnovers in last week’s 9-8 overtime win against Penn State – this came one week after notching 13 CTs in a win against Michigan.
• In 11 games thus far, the Blue Jays have 97 caused turnovers to their credit (8.82/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 to go along with the efforts against Michigan (13) and Penn State (14).  The 14 CTs against Penn State and marked the 24th 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).
• JHU currently ranks 23rd in the nation – and third in the Big Ten – with its 8.82 caused turnovers per game.
• 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 11 opponents scoreless for a period of 10 minutes or longer a total of 20 times.  11 of those 20 streaks have been 12+ minutes in length.
• In the last 10 games, the opposition has gone scoreless for a stretch of 10 minutes or longer 19 times with four of those coming against Towson and two each against Georgetown, Loyola , North Carolina, Rutgers, Michigan and Penn State.
• Dating back to the start of the 2023 season, the Blue Jays have held their 29 opponents scoreless for a period of at least 10 minutes 44 different times – 34 of those have come in the last 22 games.
• This season, in 44 full quarters (does not include overtime periods), the Blue Jays have allowed two or less goals in 27 quarters and four or more in just seven quarters.
• 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.
• Johns Hopkins is 21-1 under head coach Peter Milliman and defensive coordinator Jamison Koesterer when holding the opposition to 10 goals or less.

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