Johns Hopkins 2023

[Sagittarius A*]

Not to harp on schedule but I'm in Naples for a youth lax tournament which is tied to a double header college today (UM v Marquette and OSU v UVA). Last night, the youth kids got to hang out and get tips from all the college kids. Schellenberger gave a clinic to aspiring attackman.

Anyway, I saw Tiffany and said to take it easy against Hopkins. He smiled and said "you Hopkins guys are all the same." We talked for a few minutes about UVA and Hopkins. He told me Hopkins schedule was too tough and wasn't one he'd picked for his UVA team much less Hopkins but he said more power to Hopkins.

I guess Tiffany doesn't know what he's talking about either. lol

[DocBarrister]

Great game from Gibbs Versfeld with 15 saves, including 12 in the second half.

Faecoff crew also came back to even things up for the day.

After a shaky first quarter, the D played well.

Blue Jays won the gb battle 37 to 25. Some excellent wins on the 50-50 gbs. The Melendez gb is one of the better Blue Jay gbs in a long, long time.

EMO came alive.

There were some lapses, but this was a good looking win for Johns Hopkins. As Quint said, this was a must-win game and the Blue Jays got the job done, and looked good doing it.

DocBarrister

[jhu06]

Game they had to have and they did despite another sluggish 6v6 start
Up
-Verbsfeld/Collison/Krampf-If you get a jersey the expectation is the program can win a game because of your play and these were the reasons they did today.
-Kelly the goalie coach-another fantastic reclamation project
-My pal Dyer, they played a ton of d again in the 3rd and didn't seem gassed.
-Man up-finally got going
-brown/mazzone/smith-did a really nice job especially working beaudan back in
-Evans-very active

Down
Offense can't be that bad against quality teams as we saw last weekend
Faceoff unit-unit outperformed their season average
Another dumb offsides penalty on the offense-the 3rd or 4th

some decisions coming with guys returning.
Grimes was 4th in his class-that should be a weekly thing
Smith Mazzone Brown Kaufman Deans Ruddy have all done a nice job this year with guys returning to health some tough decisions
on offense angelus melendez degnon peshko grimes and bauer are clearly guys they like a lot but collison and kramf pushed themselves into that group today and evans was very active. Chauvette, English Mcdermott and others have a fight to reinsert themselves.
Georgetown win looking shaky. Need to get 3/5 at least of the st joes/uva/cuse/delaware/navy group which is doable to stay in the may thick of things.

[HopFan16]

Deans was in uniform, so he's probably close to returning. Narewski was not.

We went the better part of a decade without good goalie play, and now it seems like we've got at least two good ones. So that's something.

Evans had a positive impact on the offense today. 12 goals in freezing temps without Degnon, I'll take it, but they clearly have more work to do.

We're onto St. Joe's and the beer garden.

[DocBarrister]

some offensive decisions coming. Quint said degnon was practicing pregame and obviously krampf and collison have stepped up. Angelus Melendez Degnon Kramf collison peshko grimes some sort of top 7 right now with bauer and others I guess in the convo.

This is outrageous. Almost seems as if the Blue Jays are trying to build some depth on offense. This must be stopped.

DocBarrister

[DocBarrister]

That Melendez GB is the most athletic thing a Hopkins player has done in like four years

Grimes hatty. 06 is crying

Is he still a bust? I think that’s the Grimes we have been looking for

Grimes with a nice game … 3 goals and an assist.

Collison with 3 goals on 5 shots and 5 SOGs.

Krampf emerges with 3 goals and an assist.

Melendez with a couple of assists.

Angelus was the indispensable man with a goal and 3 assists.

A few others with a point.

This offense has suffered a lot of injuries in February. That’s never good, but especially not good for a motion offense in which everyone needs to know what everyone else is doing.

If the Blue Jays can avoid further injuries, this offense is going to be pretty good.

DocBarrister

[Sagittarius A*]

This offense has suffered a lot of injuries in February. That’s never good, but especially not good for a motion offense in which everyone needs to know what everyone else is doing.

If the Blue Jays can avoid further injuries, this offense is going to be pretty good.

DocBarrister

C'mon man. They beat Utah. I think they're going to need some more guys back healthy to beat St Joe's next week, and hopefully Narewski and Marcille back. The test comes when they play UVA and Cuse. I think we'll have a better idea then how good the team is then. So far good teams like UNC and Loyola have been able to stifle their offense.

[flalax22]

This offense has suffered a lot of injuries in February. That’s never good, but especially not good for a motion offense in which everyone needs to know what everyone else is doing.

If the Blue Jays can avoid further injuries, this offense is going to be pretty good.

DocBarrister

C'mon man. They beat Utah. I think they're going to need some more guys back healthy to beat St Joe's next week, and hopefully Narewski and Marcille back. The test comes when they play UVA and Cuse. I think we'll have a better idea then how good the team is then. So far good teams like UNC and Loyola have been able to stifle their offense.

Agree. Celebrate the win but get to work and find a way to get these guys to gel on the o side for serious tests.

Nobody complains more about crappy goaltending than me. Nice to see Marcille and Gib have found their games this year.

[HopFan16]

It's still early in the season but the Georgetown win may not hold up at the end of the season which is wild to think about considering they were ranked like #3 when we beat them.

Good week for the B1G if these scores hold with Maryland up big on Princeton, PSU beating Yale, Rutgers beating Loyola. Rough week for the Ivy.

St. Joe's pasted Bobby Benson's Providence team 19-6.

Outside of Joey Spallina, Collison has been the best freshman in the country IMO. If you adjust for schedule and role, one could argue he's been the most impressive. Beating shorties, bull-dodging through poles, scoring from range, question marks — showing a full midfield arsenal and he's played 5 collegiate games against top competition.

[DocBarrister]

Deans was in uniform, so he's probably close to returning. Narewski was not.

We went the better part of a decade without good goalie play, and now it seems like we've got at least two good ones. So that's something.

Evans had a positive impact on the offense today. 12 goals in freezing temps without Degnon, I'll take it, but they clearly have more work to do.

We're onto St. Joe's and the beer garden.

Blue Jays did a good job neutralizing Utah’s transition game.

DocBarrister

[jhu06]

It's still early in the season but the Georgetown win may not hold up at the end of the season which is wild to think about considering they were ranked like #3 when we beat them.

Good week for the B1G if these scores hold with Maryland up big on Princeton, PSU beating Yale, Rutgers beating Loyola. Rough week for the Ivy.

St. Joe's pasted Bobby Benson's Providence team 19-6.

Outside of Joey Spallina, Collison has been the best freshman in the country IMO. If you adjust for schedule and role, one could argue he's been the most impressive. Beating shorties, bull-dodging through poles, scoring from range, question marks — showing a full midfield arsenal and he's played 5 collegiate games against top competition.

Jameson's people look like year 3, Crawleys program looks like year 1.

Still this was a much much improved month in a lot of places.

[wgdsr]

jays looking tired. who schedules an early noon game against a squad like conference champ contenders utah anyway?

Right on cue from you

i thought you were the one who greenlighted snide on the subject looking for oxygen chamber tips? am i doing it wrong?

2023's wide open. games are winnable if good squads are up for it.

[a fan]

jays looking tired. who schedules an early noon game against a squad like conference champ contenders utah anyway?

Right on cue from you

i thought you were the one who greenlighted snide on the subject looking for oxygen chamber tips? am i doing it wrong?

Don't let them look ahead to the BigTen Tourney schedule, and how far apart those games are. They might lose it.

Milliman might take the strategy to lose the game on purpose, lest they have to play again two days later, because we can't have that.

(i'm kiddin around, hopfan16. Nice win today.)

[Hopfan]

Zach Cole won all 24 of his face offs vs Providence. Sure would be nice to have Narewski back next week.

[DocBarrister]

Just FYI, Ian Krampf was first team All-MIAA and scored 162 goals during his HS career.

https://hopkinssports.com/sports/mens-l ... ampf/15846

So, it’s not surprising that Krampf can score. The surprise is that it took so long for him to break through and have a game like this.

DocBarrister

[jrn19]

Cole is a horse, but Providence might be the worst team in D1 on FOs this year. I think Hopkins will hang in around 45-50%, which will give them plenty of possessions against a Saint Joe's defense that can be scored upon. Of course, that'll also give a Saint Joe's offense that can score a lot a lot of chances to score.

Should be a great game

[jhu06]

Gib had 15 saves today. We're at 59 percent save percentage for the year. Not sure when the last time we were that high-and these were against credible opponents. Collison at 420 shooting percentage. A jay that's really smoking.

[DocBarrister]

Cole is a horse, but Providence might be the worst team in D1 on FOs this year. I think Hopkins will hang in around 45-50%, which will give them plenty of possessions against a Saint Joe's defense that can be scored upon. Of course, that'll also give a Saint Joe's offense that can score a lot a lot of chances to score.

Should be a great game

We will need a lot of CTs and gbs like we had today, in addition to keeping things at least close to even on faceoffs.

DocBarrister

[51percentcorn]

Man some of you guys are rough - there were some good things that happened out there yesterday and Utah was ranked higher than Hopkins coming into the season with some quality players - maybe it was the weather but alot of games yesterday were lower scoring than you might expect and two of games that saw the winner get to 17 and 19 were in Naples, Florida and indoors.
OK - so you get Angelus/Melendez/Szuluk/Evans back but Degnon/Chauvette/Ruddy/Marcille are out - Still down a starting mid-felder - maybe a starting defensemen and your leading scorer from last year and your team captain can't play - no one's crying a river for Hopkins but it can't be easy switching all those pieces in and out
Versfeld - Utah did only score 5 goals in the first half right? Your first start ever on Homewood field and you see 8 shots on goal in a half and it's snowing/sleeting. Which goalie that we have or anybody has exactly is going to stop a guy coming around to the doorstep with the defense lost/an alley dodge where there is no slide and those two snipes from Utah's #4? If he does manage to get in front of just 1 of those shots - he's at 50% for the half.
Angelus - official scorers can make mistakes - but Angelus was credited with only 2 turnovers - very average even decent/well done for the guy who handles the ball that much and Hopkins had a reasonably good turnover level of 13 (in that weather).
Clearing - Hopkins was perfect in the first half and 22-24 for the game - was I watching a different game?
Ground balls - the Hopkins starters had 20!! With your face-off guys only coming up with 8 - 29 non face-off man groundballs and out g'bing your opponent by 12 is likely the best sign coming out of that game as a team. Playing a team that didn't turn the ball over a ton - 12 - had a goalie playing well and even on face-offs that ground ball disparity was what won the game.
Collison - the question mark dodge was pretty mind blowing for a freshman - he's shooting 42% from the mid-field
Grimes - as QK would say the right hand snipe off the dodge could be "significant" - he's second on the team in points - it can't be optimal to be ping pong'd around from mid to attack and the only bad item is leading the team in TO's with 8

What not to like? 33 shots - It's great to shoot something like 35% but you won't beat several of the teams on that schedule putting up only 33 because you have to shoot in the mid to high 30's every time to get to 12/13 and you're probably not holding opponents to that level. Going to have to figure out how to get more shots off - retain possession and score above 12.

Other random thoughts:
- While the defense and goalie positon is playing well to date - the offense is clearly struggling averaging 10.4 gpg - won't get it done in the shot clock era. Getting outshot on average by 5 shots per game.
- Collison will become the marked man on the mid-field - clearly with his size and speed he will still get his at points in time but he's going to start seeing some of the best LSMs around (and more slides) - passing and others stepping up will have to happen
- Great sign having more g'bs than opponents while face-offs are basically dead even - not so great to be averaging 16 turnovers a game.
- Boy did the Ivy League have a tough day - watched some of the replays of the MD/Princeton and Duke/Penn games. Could have given Princeton the ball all day and they were not going to score on that defense. Penn has some very good players but they will go nowhere standing around every offensive possession waiting for Handley to get on the field and then giving it to him 45 yards from the goal. Shrinks the shot clock to under 60 every time and when good teams have someone like #19 for Duke he looked incredibly average. Duke had to try to let 10-3 late in the 3rd get to 14-12.
- With the Charlottesville juggernaut showing up in 9 days - the St. Joe's game is critical - people will poke fun at Syracuse's defense to date but they will be very focused on that game - could be a much different attitude going to the Dome 4-2/4-3 rather than 3/4.

[Creasedive]

Just FYI, Ian Krampf was first team All-MIAA and scored 162 goals during his HS career.

https://hopkinssports.com/sports/mens-l ... ampf/15846

So, it’s not surprising that Krampf can score. The surprise is that it took so long for him to break through and have a game like this.

Hard to do when they aren’t putting him in the game. Wasted talent.

DocBarrister