Johns Hopkins 2024

[jhu06]

Up
-Man down defense. 6/7 is fantastic
-The composure and effort. Moment seemed too big for Loyola aside from their goalie.
-The defense, they strangled loyola for the most part.
-Ierlan, critical saves all day and a real awareness for the game.
-Degnon-3 goals, 3 cts, 1 penalty. Quasi Gordie Howe Hat Trick.
-Man Up
-Collison
-The second half start and 4th quarter finish
-Angelus
-Chauvette, we won't see many better goalie performances this year but he found a way back to the score sheet
-Evans-every game he makes a play or two that comes up helping us to win
-ssdms 11 gbs 3 cts
-Kilrain, aside from the errant pass in the 3rd a big performance
-Bauer, he came on late, the ball moves very very well when he's going. He and Collison are a nice pair on that first midfield.
-McDermott-credited with 4gbs, but he was active on a lot more.
-4 games, 4 games where they've taken the lead into the 4th. Progress.
-I really liked that they threw Ayers in there in big moments, eventually the 5 year thing is going to run out and need bodies who aren't learning on the job.
-$18 tickets-seemed to annoy quint quite a lot.

Down
-Dunn 3 penalties
-Callahan-benched
-Too slow of a 6 on 6 offensive start
-Losing English isn't good
-Too many penalties again. I thought on degnon's he was going for the shoulder and ended up higher.
-We probably won't see a turnover prone effort like this from loyola again for awhile and it felt like this should have been a blowout going into the halftime speech. The late run was great and the loyola goalie played his stick off, but Loyola gives Virginia or another ACC power all those possessions and they're running them off the field.

[DocBarrister]

Wow! Degnon - 3g, 5gb, 3ct

Angelus - 3g, 4a
Collison - 2g, 1a
Bauer - 2g, 1a, 1ct
Grimes - 1g
Melendez- 1g
H. Chauvette - 1g

Jaronski - 4gb, 2ct
Szuluk - 2gb, 2ct
B. Martin - 2gb, 1ct

Kilrain - 5gb
McDermott - 4gb

Dunn - 5gb, 11/17

Ierlan - 9 saves .563%

Well done, Jays!

Yep!

My favorite stats: Blue Jays with 12 CTs and holding Loyola to 19 of 26 on clears with that tough ride!

Also, Ierlan just outright stole a few goals from Loyola.

DocBarrister

[HopFan16]

The Jays are a one-in-a-million last second 4th quarter nightmare collapse away from being 4-0 and likely ranked #4.

Ugly, ugly first half but excellent effort from pretty much everyone across the board after the break.

Hope English injury isn't as bad as it looked but I would expect him to be out for awhile.

Degnon: 3 goals, 5 GBs, 3 CTS...and 0 turnovers. What an effort from the 38-year-old grad student.

Kilrain really is Mazzone 2.0, it's kind of uncanny. Best part is we get 3+ more years of this and he's going to get better.

Evan James was a ghost in Smith's coverage. He is just gobbling up his assignment every week and is the most athletic close defenseman in the clear I've see in quite some time. How many D guys can move like that? Unreal.

Wing play was phenomenal from 30, 33, and 6 in particular.

Bauer is drawing the pole anyway — might be time to put him down at attack and have Melendez run out of the box to try to get some better matchups to get him going. He was irrelevant today until that late goal.

We played SIX shorties today (Martin, Jaronski, Raposo, Aviles, Ince, Arteaga), and none of them were real liabilities. That depth is going to pay off come April/May.

Onto UNC.

[jhu06]

quint kept saying on the broadcast that replay was available for the coaches and I thought the big ten coaches agreed they weren't doing it for home games.

[HopFan16]

quint kept saying on the broadcast that replay was available for the coaches and I thought the big ten coaches agreed they weren't doing it for home games.

The conference decided not to implement it conference-wide. But each school can still decide to do it on their own if they want

[norcalhop]

And we have Tyler Eye from Lawrenceville coming too. LSM depth will be fruitful for years to come.

Will we get any updates on English's injury?

[Ruffled_Feathers]

He was on the sidelines in the second half with a big boot and crutches still not really putting much weight on it. Certainly an ankle or foot injury and nothing like knee related so good news on that front, but how bad we'll have to wait to see in the coming days I imagine, probably hasn't even gotten any imaging of it done yet.

[nyjay]

Great win today and a pretty entertaining game. Felt like it was closer than it needed to be for much of the game - Staudt with 17 saves will do that though, I guess. Loyola tried to bully us, but the guys played tough and didn't let that happened and didn't pick up too many unnecessary penalties (much to QK's chagrin). The offense looked disjointed (23 excepted) and would have liked more from 31 in particular given what he's capable of, but every other facet of the game was completely on point. F/O, wing play, goaltending, clearing, riding, D (especially man down) were all fantastic. Have to think the offense will come around. A lot of guys are coming through the box at this point and not sure there are really clear groups of 3 yet.

On the F/O, have to imagine that PM felt like 30 was just the better matchup today and that there will be games where 30 takes more draws than 5. Good to have two guys who are reliable, if not better.

Good for the terps for beating SU up in the dome - definitely helps on the RPI for the conference games. Fun game and wild ending. Both good teams, but feel like they both can be had. I think they're both a tier or two down from UVa, Duke and ND. I'd probably lean Hop against either of them on a neutral field. Really hate the new rules on non releasable penalties. Completely inconsistent at this point and, as we've seen, can really affect the outcome of a game. Would like to go back to last year's rules on that.

Great win for Towson too (What the heck happened to Navy?). Maybe that will turn out to be a good win by the end of the year.

That stupid Denver loss is going to be an eyesore all year.

[primitiveskills]

Great win today and a pretty entertaining game. Felt like it was closer than it needed to be for much of the game - Staudt with 17 saves will do that though, I guess. Loyola tried to bully us, but the guys played tough and didn't let that happened and didn't pick up too many unnecessary penalties (much to QK's chagrin). The offense looked disjointed (23 excepted) and would have liked more from 31 in particular given what he's capable of, but every other facet of the game was completely on point. F/O, wing play, goaltending, clearing, riding, D (especially man down) were all fantastic. Have to think the offense will come around. A lot of guys are coming through the box at this point and not sure there are really clear groups of 3 yet.

On the F/O, have to imagine that PM felt like 30 was just the better matchup today and that there will be games where 30 takes more draws than 5. Good to have two guys who are reliable, if not better.

Good for the terps for beating SU up in the dome - definitely helps on the RPI for the conference games. Fun game and wild ending. Both good teams, but feel like they both can be had. I think they're both a tier or two down from UVa, Duke and ND. I'd probably lean Hop against either of them on a neutral field. Really hate the new rules on non releasable penalties. Completely inconsistent at this point and, as we've seen, can really affect the outcome of a game. Would like to go back to last year's rules on that.

Great win for Towson too (What the heck happened to Navy?). Maybe that will turn out to be a good win by the end of the year.

That stupid Denver loss is going to be an eyesore all year.

I think we just got too caught up in the chippiness for awhile, and that affected both sides of the field. The offense did look stagnant for a lot of the first three quarters, but they did exactly what you would want in that situation and rode better than a Hop team has in a long time. So credit to them for doing what had to be done to win.

Oh, and for folks that still aren't big fans of PM, just check out that coaching masterpiece by Gait at the end of the MD-Syracuse game.

[HopFan16]

Oh, and for folks that still aren't big fans of PM, just check out that coaching masterpiece by Gait at the end of the MD-Syracuse game.

PM and the whole staff had a very good second half coaching against one of the better trios in the country in Toomey, Dwan, and MVA. Solid adjustments, the offense was patient and probing without taking the air out of the ball. Move to Dunn was smart — just wasn't Logan's day after that first early jump, never got in a rhythm. Timeout decisions were sound, saved possession on two separate occasions. Can't remember if we cashed in after, but at least we had the chance to.

I obviously would have greatly preferred to win the Denver game, but in an alternate universe where we didn't win that game, I wonder how the second half of this one would have gone. They saw what happens when you let a good team back into the game and this time they slammed the door emphatically. That's what good teams are supposed to do. Hopefully it becomes a trend.

The defense is allowing 7 goals per game over the last three. Coach K's group is the lifeblood of the team right now. They are locked in. Offense has had its moments but we need that end of the field to match the consistency of the D. English going down doesn't help but this is where the vaunted depth comes in. Next man up.

[51percentcorn]

Random thoughts - observations:
- Score was a tiny bit misleading - 7-6 with under 13 minutes and if Ierlan doesn't make that save (after Staudt's save on the 10 man ride) you would have been looking at 10-8 and the Denver ghosts would have been looming
- Loyola with a very uncharacteristic 20 turnovers and it looks like only 2 were shot clocks - 12 caused turnovers for Hopkins and the ride were the two most conspicuous reasons for the win
- Another reason was ground balls - Of Loyola's 27 ground balls - 10 were by specialty players (face-off/goalie) - only 8 of Hopkins 35 were by specialty players - I hope Chris gave Casey McDermott a banana
- Melendez has been conspicuous in his being inconspicuous - need more than 2 very quiet points a game from that attackman that never leaves the field
- Have to be very happy with the settled D - 5 goals and 9 points from the BIg 3 for Loyola and LIndsey with 1 assist - that will get you a win over Loyola
- Man down defense was very very good - the only EMO goal in 7 tries was a pretty spectacular shot
- High ankle sprains - the best outcome - are a bioche to get over - hope it's not broken

[DocBarrister]

Oh, and for folks that still aren't big fans of PM, just check out that coaching masterpiece by Gait at the end of the MD-Syracuse game.

PM and the whole staff had a very good second half coaching against one of the better trios in the country in Toomey, Dwan, and MVA. Solid adjustments, the offense was patient and probing without taking the air out of the ball. Move to Dunn was smart — just wasn't Logan's day after that first early jump, never got in a rhythm. Timeout decisions were sound, saved possession on two separate occasions. Can't remember if we cashed in after, but at least we had the chance to.

I obviously would have greatly preferred to win the Denver game, but in an alternate universe where we didn't win that game, I wonder how the second half of this one would have gone. They saw what happens when you let a good team back into the game and this time they slammed the door emphatically. That's what good teams are supposed to do. Hopefully it becomes a trend.

The defense is allowing 7 goals per game over the last three. Coach K's group is the lifeblood of the team right now. They are locked in. Offense has had its moments but we need that end of the field to match the consistency of the D. English going down doesn't help but this is where the vaunted depth comes in. Next man up.

One thing that stands out about the 2024 Blue Jays … this may be the hardest working Hopkins team in a while.

Causing turnovers, winning groundballs, and implementing a tough ride … all of that requires a lot of extra effort on the field.

It’s really something to see.

Right now, I think what the Blue Jays lack is consistency, especially on O. Otherwise, I think this team can play with, and beat, anyone.

DocBarrister

[jhu06]

Oh, and for folks that still aren't big fans of PM, just check out that coaching masterpiece by Gait at the end of the MD-Syracuse game.

PM and the whole staff had a very good second half coaching against one of the better trios in the country in Toomey, Dwan, and MVA. Solid adjustments, the offense was patient and probing without taking the air out of the ball. Move to Dunn was smart — just wasn't Logan's day after that first early jump, never got in a rhythm. Timeout decisions were sound, saved possession on two separate occasions. Can't remember if we cashed in after, but at least we had the chance to.

I obviously would have greatly preferred to win the Denver game, but in an alternate universe where we didn't win that game, I wonder how the second half of this one would have gone. They saw what happens when you let a good team back into the game and this time they slammed the door emphatically. That's what good teams are supposed to do. Hopefully it becomes a trend.

The defense is allowing 7 goals per game over the last three. Coach K's group is the lifeblood of the team right now. They are locked in. Offense has had its moments but we need that end of the field to match the consistency of the D. English going down doesn't help but this is where the vaunted depth comes in. Next man up.

They didn't learn from that Smith penalty. 7 yesterday was awful. Dunn needed more self control.

After 4 games my biggest concerns are 6 on 6 offense, melendez, and penalties.

Szuluk got away with a biblically awful bad pass on the gb that turned into an Angelus goal.

They said on the broadcast "Crawley is still trying to figure out his offensive pairings". Most of his guys have 3-4 years at Homewood. The offense in the first half was a replay of the end of the Denver game where there is no punch or scoring. The second half start though was very very strong.

SSdms picked up a ton of gbs yesterday and were extremely active although Aviles at times looked a step slow.

All sorts of takeaways from that Cuse-MD. Defense better be ready for Maryland scoring off faceoffs, the Cuse kid Leo can do all sorts of damage from all angles et al. I was torn on who to root for. I settled on Maryland because there's more chances to get wins over them, sos, and I was over the Spallina hype (who Carc called the best player in the country on the broadcast) a year ago.

[BlueJaySince1947]

Carc's ebullient babbling is extremely annoying...!

[HopFan16]

I was watching yesterday's highlights, and just needed to post this to get it off my chest.

This is Angelus' goal to make it 6-4 at 9:37 in the 3rd quarter. In the screenshot below, the ball is already in the back of the net. You can see it in the top left corner. The Loyola defenseman on the right of the screen is 4-5 yards away at this point.



Let's spin it forward. The goal has been scored — the Loyola goalie is literally facing his net, looking for the ball to rake out. The play is dead. Angelus is running away to celebrate. But the Loyola defenseman is continuing to pursue Angelus with his arms extended even as his goaltender fishes the ball out of the net:



And here's the upshot. Again, this is not bang-bang. The play is over, the goal has been scored, the goal scorer's back turned and he's beginning his celebration. But here comes #55 on Loyola, hands separated on the stick with a blatant cross-check to the back of Angelus' head. There is no call.



This is 10 times worse than the Smith hit in the Denver game that was deemed a 2-minute non-releasable. This is not a lacrosse play. This is intent to injure. And again, there's no call. Best part is the ref is staring right at it:



Obviously what's done is done, the Jays won anyway, and I'm sure if you scrutinized every call there were probably a few questionable ones that went our way. I'm not posting this to say we were jobbed by the refs. They're never going to get everything right, that's the nature of the beast. But this has gotta be one of the most egregiously blown calls I've seen in awhile, especially because the refs have been so penalty-happy this year with anything remotely in the vicinity of a hit to the head.

[ColumbiaBlueBlack]

I think we just got too caught up in the chippiness for awhile, and that affected both sides of the field.

The refs started losing control of the game early and by the time they figured out where they were, heading toward, but not quite on the edge of chaos, they had to scramble to regain some semblance which explains some of the otherwise Huh??? calls. For example, moving picks. This game featured uncalled mp's galore. Problem: that then led to the picked player (the "pickee"?) deliberately plowing over a correctly established picker (hey, he's not moving, so What the heck, they're not calling mp so this should be OK). So what wasn't called early, the mp, became a UR not called later. But now, the refs had to regain control, so inconsistent stuff got called.

Let this be a cautionary tale: There are too few really good, experienced refs out there and too many so-called "big" games that demand the attention of those few. If we have one "good" ref, then logistics demands that we have two "others," but that one cannot/should not encroach on the others' assigned duties, unless something truly egregious happens, so we have Tuesday night on Saturday afternoon. Stop bitching about the calls, get out there and referee yourself. Or, do as I do, sit with a former ref (after reading the rule book several times), and understand just how impossible a task it can be.

[jhu06]

There was a call in the 3rd or 4th that helped keep a possession for Hopkins where it looked like a ball that went out of play about 2/3 of the way towards the hopkins sideline end should've been loyola ball. The refs were busy and I'm sure they didn't have the quality footwear or conditioning the players had to get up and down a field that had recent snowfall.

They need better self control and self awareness. They're not going to stop playing rivalry games in front of hostile rival fan bases and the athleticism, efficiency and ability of opponents to cash in on unforced errors are only going to go up dramatically in the coming weeks. Syracuse is not going to go 1/6 on man up and UVA is not going to surrender that kind of gb or turnover advantage.

Carc had a really touching tribute to his late roommate they were honoring at the game at halftime. One of his finer moments in his career. Had to be hard to do that.

[NCC]

Agree. Carc handled that personal and relevant story exceptionally well.

He is a great ambassador of the game.

[nyjay]

I was watching yesterday's highlights, and just needed to post this to get it off my chest.

I think I called out Ref 49 yesterday. I was going to call him the "fat guy" but, you know, glass houses (pavilions?) and all. I have no idea who he is, but he had a really awful game yesterday.

I hate to spend all my time bitching about the calls, but we're not really getting them this year (the sideline run-out that 06 mentioned notwithstanding, which in real time I thought was a terrible call, but the replay was a lot closer than I thought) I think the 2 min nonreleasable on Dunn was the one that really set me off while watching.

[nyjay]

Agree. Carc handled that personal and relevant story exceptionally well.

He is a great ambassador of the game.

Carc is a genuinely nice dude. Not everyone loves him - I've heard stories about him playing in beer leagues, where he's not universally beloved - but the couple of times I've met him, he's been incredibly gracious and generous with his time. QK on the other hand, well, not so much. I think that is unfortunately also Carc's biggest failing as an announcer. He just acts like everyone in the game he is calling is the single most awesomest player ever and it gets tiresome. But I think it comes from a good place. That said, Cotter's constant references to "'Cuse" yesterday made me want to vomit.