Johns Hopkins 2022

[HopFan16]

Any idea on the goalie situation?

That's the million dollar question. I doubt it's settled now, and it may not be for awhile. I've talked to some people who think it's more likely than not that we see a new face in goal, at least to start out. But without being at practice everyday it's hard to know where things stand. Versfeld would appear to offer a size element we haven't had in awhile. Marcille showed a little something late last season but the performance vs. Maryland in the B1G title game certainly left the door open for competition. It may come down to the "smaller" things, like outlet passing and who can organize the defense best. Which of course are still very important, but perhaps aren't as discussed as sheer shot-stopping ability. I'd sell my soul just to get to at least 50% consistently there.

[Sidelinehorn!]

My hope is they give Kirson another chance to do that. He played hurt last year in front of a defense that struggled. He has the chops to be that 50% guy and was strong at OSU....just my two cents..

[Catbird]

That's the first I think anyone has heard about Kirson playing hurt last year. Trying not to be glib about the subject but if it was bad enough to make him post a .397 save percentage in 9 starts, he probably shouldn't have been playing.

I think as a grad student with no future, they are going to give the other guys the first chance to lock down the role. If he showed up this year with a renewed vigor and pushes the other guys or does well enough that he takes the role back for a year, even better for everyone though.

[51percentcorn]

I did a deeper dive into Kirson's stats at OSU and posted them a while back. I'm not really interested in doing it again but my memory - if serving correctly - tells me there were some issues:
- his 58% save percentage was a skoche misleading in the abbreviated 2020 season - under 50 percent against Cornell and Notre Dame - some ridiculous save numbers against teams like BU and Hofstra
- Full 2019 season numbers were meh - .509 overall - never above 50 in the 5 BIG games IIRC a 1-4 record there with the sole win against Hopkins ironicaly

I remember they said they played Marcille in part because Kirson was hurt but I didn't understand he was injured for most of the season? Certainly, the lack of practice time didn't help him, the defense or the cohesion between the two. I have nothing against the young man at all - if he's the best man for the job he should play.

[nyjay]

I did a deeper dive into Kirson's stats at OSU and posted them a while back. I'm not really interested in doing it again but my memory - if serving correctly - tells me there were some issues:
- his 58% save percentage was a skoche misleading in the abbreviated 2020 season - under 50 percent against Cornell and Notre Dame - some ridiculous save numbers against teams like BU and Hofstra
- Full 2019 season numbers were meh - .509 overall - never above 50 in the 5 BIG games IIRC a 1-4 record there with the sole win against Hopkins ironicaly

I remember they said they played Marcille in part because Kirson was hurt but I didn't understand he was injured for most of the season? Certainly, the lack of practice time didn't help him, the defense or the cohesion between the two. I have nothing against the young man at all - if he's the best man for the job he should play.

I would have thought Marcille would have been the clear frontrunner, but who knows. Does Versfeld have one year of eligibility remaining or two (counting this 22 season of course)? On Kirson, 0.509 is indeed kinda meh, but how far back do we have to go to find a JHU goalie above that? I'd like 16 to keep his soul, but I'd take .509 in a heartbeat.

[HopFan16]

I did a deeper dive into Kirson's stats at OSU and posted them a while back. I'm not really interested in doing it again but my memory - if serving correctly - tells me there were some issues:
- his 58% save percentage was a skoche misleading in the abbreviated 2020 season - under 50 percent against Cornell and Notre Dame - some ridiculous save numbers against teams like BU and Hofstra
- Full 2019 season numbers were meh - .509 overall - never above 50 in the 5 BIG games IIRC a 1-4 record there with the sole win against Hopkins ironicaly

I remember they said they played Marcille in part because Kirson was hurt but I didn't understand he was injured for most of the season? Certainly, the lack of practice time didn't help him, the defense or the cohesion between the two. I have nothing against the young man at all - if he's the best man for the job he should play.

I would have thought Marcille would have been the clear frontrunner, but who knows. Does Versfeld have one year of eligibility remaining or two (counting this 22 season of course)? On Kirson, 0.509 is indeed kinda meh, but how far back do we have to go to find a JHU goalie above that? I'd like 16 to keep his soul, but I'd take .509 in a heartbeat.

Souls are boring.

Versfeld has two years left, including '22 season. The rub is he hasn't played since 2020.

As far as I know we don't have a goalie in the next incoming recruiting class. (We had one, but he was let go and hasn't been replaced to my knowledge.) There are several ways of interpreting that but one is that the staff feels good about what they've seen from Sgt. Friday.

Eventually our goalie woes will end. I have faith. I probably shouldn't, but I do. Just getting league average play there would go a long way.

[51percentcorn]

.509 is the statistic but the opponents??? Some Cleveland States/BUs thrown in there - Notre Dame was the only OOC opponent to make the tournament that year. Ohio State was 7-0 after nipping Notre Dame entering the BIG schedules and left 8-4 missing both BIG and NCAA tourneys and again over the last 5 BIG games he did not get to 50 in any one of them. Seemed like a pretty good defense in front of him too - only Rutgers got to 14 goals and only 1 OOC opponent Bucknell got to 13.

[flalax22]

My hope is they give Kirson another chance to do that. He played hurt last year in front of a defense that struggled. He has the chops to be that 50% guy and was strong at OSU....just my two cents..

From what I’ve heard he has a long way to go to climb back into starting contention.

[DocBarrister]

I did a deeper dive into Kirson's stats at OSU and posted them a while back. I'm not really interested in doing it again but my memory - if serving correctly - tells me there were some issues:
- his 58% save percentage was a skoche misleading in the abbreviated 2020 season - under 50 percent against Cornell and Notre Dame - some ridiculous save numbers against teams like BU and Hofstra
- Full 2019 season numbers were meh - .509 overall - never above 50 in the 5 BIG games IIRC a 1-4 record there with the sole win against Hopkins ironicaly

I remember they said they played Marcille in part because Kirson was hurt but I didn't understand he was injured for most of the season? Certainly, the lack of practice time didn't help him, the defense or the cohesion between the two. I have nothing against the young man at all - if he's the best man for the job he should play.

I would have thought Marcille would have been the clear frontrunner, but who knows. Does Versfeld have one year of eligibility remaining or two (counting this 22 season of course)? On Kirson, 0.509 is indeed kinda meh, but how far back do we have to go to find a JHU goalie above that? I'd like 16 to keep his soul, but I'd take .509 in a heartbeat.

Souls are boring.

Versfeld has two years left, including '22 season. The rub is he hasn't played since 2020.

As far as I know we don't have a goalie in the next incoming recruiting class. (We had one, but he was let go and hasn't been replaced to my knowledge.) There are several ways of interpreting that but one is that the staff feels good about what they've seen from Sgt. Friday.

Eventually our goalie woes will end. I have faith. I probably shouldn't, but I do. Just getting league average play there would go a long way.

Some of the recent bad goalie stats were due in large measure to some truly awful defensive play.

I was very encouraged by the improvement in defense over the course of the 2021 season, especially on off-ball defense. If the Blue Jays can play some solid defense and win their share of faceoffs, then I think we could finally get a goalie who saves 53-55% of the SOGs.

Here’s hopin’ ….

DocBarrister

[HopFan16]

Some of the recent bad goalie stats were due in large measure to some truly awful defensive play.

Yes and no. A bad defense certainly doesn't make things easy.

But here are some examples of why save % still can and should be better even with a largely suspect defense in front of the goalie.

We were 41st (out of 64) in scoring defense last year, but 60th in saves per game and our starting goalie was dead last in save percentage among qualifying goalies.

One could actually argue the opposite of what you're saying — that the defense might have put up decent numbers with average goalie play.

Ohio State, Penn State, and Michigan all played the same schedule as us last year and they had statistically worse defenses. (48th, 52nd, and 59th, respectively.) Yet they all had better save percentages. We gave up the exact same amount of goals per game last year as Air Force, yet their goalies combined for about a 50% save percentage. Every single year, there are goalies who play behind mediocre or bad defenses and are still able to get to 50%.

If we had gotten just slightly better goalie play in the B1G title game, we may have made the NCAA tournament (improbably), and who knows what would have happened then. The team was certainly playing well enough at that point to win a first-round tourney game. Point is, the difference between 40% and 50% can be enormous. And you can't simply chalk it all up to being part of a bad defense. Not to mention, the defense is also — partly — the goalie's responsibility to lead.

[DocBarrister]

Some of the recent bad goalie stats were due in large measure to some truly awful defensive play.

Yes and no. A bad defense certainly doesn't make things easy.

But here are some examples of why save % still can and should be better even with a largely suspect defense in front of the goalie.

We were 41st (out of 64) in scoring defense last year, but 60th in saves per game and our starting goalie was dead last in save percentage among qualifying goalies.

One could actually argue the opposite of what you're saying — that the defense might have put up decent numbers with average goalie play.

Ohio State, Penn State, and Michigan all played the same schedule as us last year and they had statistically worse defenses. (48th, 52nd, and 59th, respectively.) Yet they all had better save percentages. We gave up the exact same amount of goals per game last year as Air Force, yet their goalies combined for about a 50% save percentage. Every single year, there are goalies who play behind mediocre or bad defenses and are still able to get to 50%.

If we had gotten just slightly better goalie play in the B1G title game, we may have made the NCAA tournament (improbably), and who knows what would have happened then. The team was certainly playing well enough at that point to win a first-round tourney game. Point is, the difference between 40% and 50% can be enormous. And you can't simply chalk it all up to being part of a bad defense. Not to mention, the defense is also — partly — the goalie's responsibility to lead.

I hear what you’re saying. No doubt goalie play could have been better. I don’t think the Blue Jays have had particularly good goalie development in, oh, the last decade or so. Can’t quite explain it. In contrast, I think Coach Tillman is among the best goalie coaches in the country.

Having said that, we have all witnessed too many dunks on the crease that even a Lacrosse Hall of Famer would have trouble saving. Bad off-ball defense plagued Petro’s defenses in the last few years of his tenure at Hopkins.


DocBarrister

[jhu06]

Jameson did a very very nice job as the 3rd assistant working with poppleton or dolente after that fiasco against denver in 11 but after him the goalie coach they brought in was not successful for the most part.

The third assistant now is this guy
https://hopkinssports.com/staff-directo ... annino/393
who apparently has a relationship w/the amherst kid. We'll see if he can help engineer any sort of progress. In fitting form for lacrosse copywriting his bio contains typos.

In his role at Johns Hopkins, he works closely with the Blue Jay defense alongside defensive coordinator Dan Annino.

and this

During his first season at Homewood, Annino helped Johns Hopkins to its third consecutive appearance in the Big Ten Championship game, where the Blue Jays narrowly fell to top-ranked Maryland. Annino was instrumental in the growth of an entirely remade defensive unit that spearheaded JHU's run to the Big Ten title game. The group was at its best during the team's three games against third-seeded Penn State, second-seeded Rutgers and top-seeded Maryland in the Big Ten Tournament. In six combined games against those teams during the regular season, the Blue Jays allowed an average of 13.5 goals per game; during the three-game run in the tournament, Hopkins cut that number down to 9.7 (29 goals in three games).

This is an interesting interpretation of last season, but optimism abounds.

[Sagittarius A*]

I hear what you’re saying. No doubt goalie play could have been better. I don’t think the Blue Jays have had particularly good goalie development in, oh, the last decade or so. Can’t quite explain it. In contrast, I think Coach Tillman is among the best goalie coaches in the country.

DocBarrister

Tillman played in the goal at Cornell. He does do an excellent job of developing goalies but he also has some talent to work with.
Marcille is the only UA AA we've had since Eric Schneider. Schneider took the team to it's only FF since 2008.

[MDlaxfan76]

Some of the recent bad goalie stats were due in large measure to some truly awful defensive play.

Yes and no. A bad defense certainly doesn't make things easy.

But here are some examples of why save % still can and should be better even with a largely suspect defense in front of the goalie.

We were 41st (out of 64) in scoring defense last year, but 60th in saves per game and our starting goalie was dead last in save percentage among qualifying goalies.

One could actually argue the opposite of what you're saying — that the defense might have put up decent numbers with average goalie play.

Ohio State, Penn State, and Michigan all played the same schedule as us last year and they had statistically worse defenses. (48th, 52nd, and 59th, respectively.) Yet they all had better save percentages. We gave up the exact same amount of goals per game last year as Air Force, yet their goalies combined for about a 50% save percentage. Every single year, there are goalies who play behind mediocre or bad defenses and are still able to get to 50%.

If we had gotten just slightly better goalie play in the B1G title game, we may have made the NCAA tournament (improbably), and who knows what would have happened then. The team was certainly playing well enough at that point to win a first-round tourney game. Point is, the difference between 40% and 50% can be enormous. And you can't simply chalk it all up to being part of a bad defense. Not to mention, the defense is also — partly — the goalie's responsibility to lead.

I hear what you’re saying. No doubt goalie play could have been better. I don’t think the Blue Jays have had particularly good goalie development in, oh, the last decade or so. Can’t quite explain it. In contrast, I think Coach Tillman is among the best goalie coaches in the country.

Having said that, we have all witnessed too many dunks on the crease that even a Lacrosse Hall of Famer would have trouble saving. Bad off-ball defense plagued Petro’s defenses in the last few years of his tenure at Hopkins.


DocBarrister

It was explained, folks just didn't want to hear it.

I don't know that the current staff has a better perspective on how to recruit and coach goalies, but at least they're not going to be recruiting freshmen and sophomores in HS. Rules change fixed that.

[HopFan16]

Marcille is the only UA AA we've had since Eric Schneider.

Flat out wrong.

Jameson

It's Jamison — figured you should know that by now given how often you are apparently reading the assistant coaches' bios.

He also still works with the faceoff guys, in addition to coordinating the defense.

Felt like Annino ran a pretty tight box last year, don't recall too many offsides penalties or substitution snafus. That's anecdotal of course but it would mark an improvement from the previous season(s).

[Sidelinehorn!]

Marcille is the only UA AA we've had since Eric Schneider.

Flat out wrong.

Jameson

It's Jamison — figured you should know that by now given how often you are apparently reading the assistant coaches' bios.

He also still works with the faceoff guys, in addition to coordinating the defense.

Felt like Annino ran a pretty tight box last year, don't recall too many offsides penalties or substitution snafus. That's anecdotal of course but it would mark an improvement from the previous season(s).

Kirson was a UA AA when he was at The Hill Academy...

[Sagittarius A*]

Kirson was a UA AA when he was at The Hill Academy...

Ah, didn't know that. Then Marcille was the only goalie UA AA Hop has successfully recruited straight out of HS recently.
For whatever reason, Kirson did not pan out last year.
Marcille took a 2-8 team to the BIG FINAL last year. Give the kid some credit.
Maybe the new guy Gib is a wall in goal and beats him out....but I would be surprised to see anyone other than Marcille start the season in the nets for the Jays this spring.

[Sidelinehorn!]

Kirson was a UA AA when he was at The Hill Academy...

Ah, didn't know that. Then Marcille was the only goalie UA AA Hop has successfully recruited straight out of HS recently.
For whatever reason, Kirson did not pan out last year.
Marcille took a 2-8 team to the BIG FINAL last year. Give the kid some credit.
Maybe the new guy Gib is a wall in goal and beats him out....but I would be surprised to see anyone other than Marcille start the season in the nets for the Jays this spring.

I've coached against Marcille and he was a fantastic keeper in HS...I don't know much about Gib, but Amherst was no slouch in D3 when he was there..should be a good goalie battle...I also think the frosh from Loyola is the future...he was very good when I watched him play in HS

[Catbird]

Kirson was a UA AA when he was at The Hill Academy...

Ah, didn't know that. Then Marcille was the only goalie UA AA Hop has successfully recruited straight out of HS recently.
For whatever reason, Kirson did not pan out last year.
Marcille took a 2-8 team to the BIG FINAL last year. Give the kid some credit.
Maybe the new guy Gib is a wall in goal and beats him out....but I would be surprised to see anyone other than Marcille start the season in the nets for the Jays this spring.

I've coached against Marcille and he was a fantastic keeper in HS...I don't know much about Gib, but Amherst was no slouch in D3 when he was there..should be a good goalie battle...I also think the frosh from Loyola is the future...he was very good when I watched him play in HS

Would love to see Marcille solidify himself at the position, he played very well when called upon last year but kind of left the door open with a not-so-great performance in the B1G final. My take from limited time seeing the team in the fall (fallball scrimmages against Hobart and Richmond) was that Versfeld or Webb looked best in the game action but no one really stood heads and shoulders above anyone else (unless you're talking literally about Gib).

[HopFan16]

Kirson was a UA AA when he was at The Hill Academy...

Ah, didn't know that. Then Marcille was the only goalie UA AA Hop has successfully recruited straight out of HS recently.

Man, wrong again. I'll give you one more guess.

My take from limited time seeing the team in the fall (fallball scrimmages against Hobart and Richmond) was that Versfeld or Webb looked best in the game action but no one really stood heads and shoulders above anyone else (unless you're talking literally about Gib).

This was actually something I was wondering about — I watched HOB's fall highlights back again the other day and didn't see any Webb? Hobart scrimmage was Marcille first half and Gib second half. Then Richmond scrimmage was Kirson for 3 quarters and then Gib for the 4th. If Webb played, he didn't make the highlight tape. Which is probably a good thing for a goalie.