From the opening faceoff against the University of Michigan, it was clear the Jays were not going to be stopped.
The eighth ranked Jays won the faceoff and got to work right away. In only about one minute of action, they had already generated two shots.
The third came off a turnover caused by freshman midfielder Joe Carlini, who sent the ball up the field. After a slick pass from junior attackman Wells Stanwick, junior long stick midfielder Michael Pellegrino scored the first goal of the day.
Three minutes later, Stanwick would score on his own. After a devastating fake left that elicited gasps from the crowd he cut right and fired into the net.
Another three minutes would pass before senior attackman Brandon Benn added a goal of his own, pushing his consecutive scoring streak up to 19 games.
The Jays would tack on three more goals from junior Bronson Kelly, freshman John Crawley, and Benn to give themselves an enormous 6-0 lead after the first quarter of action.
Senior captain Rob Guida said the early scoring barrage set the team up nicely for the rest of the game.
“I think we capitalized early which is something we were struggling with a little bit the past two games. That helped our offense settle down a little bit and start to click,” Guida said.
The offense did indeed click, but not before allowing the Michigan’s senior midfielder Doug Bryant to score his team’s first goal 18 minutes into the game. Sophomore midfielder Holden Cattoni answered with two goals to put Hopkins up 8-1 before Guida put on a show.
After sprinting nearly the length of the field toward the Michigan goal, Guida stopped on a dime, froze his defender, faked to his right and spun left before firing a laser into the top of the net. The Jays would enter the half up 9-1, but they were not finished yet.
A goal from sophomore attackman Ryan Brown began the scoring of the second half. Just two minutes later, freshman midfielder Cody Radziewicz scored the first goal of his career and returned to a supportive Jay sideline where his teammates were pounding his helmet.
Guida’s second score of the day gave Hopkins an 11-goal lead, its biggest of the day.
Michigan would then score just its second goal of the day another 16 minutes after its first. Sophomore midfielder Craig Madarasz answer five seconds later to put the Jays up 13-2.
Meanwhile senior goalie Eric Schneider silently racked up his 13th save of the day. Schneider would finish the game with an astonishing 19 saves, drawing praise from his captain.
“He played [unbelievably]. I think how we played today starts with our goalie and I think Eric played awesome,” Guida said.
After allowing one more shot to fly past him in the third, the senior goalie had a point-blank save to start the fourth. He would save two more shots in the next two minutes, garnering applause from the home crowd.
Michigan sophomore midfielder David Joseph pushed the score to 13-4, but Schneider again made a terrific play just two minutes later, diving for his 19th and final save and causing the crowd to erupt with applause and cheers.
The teams would exchange goals, with junior long stick midfielder Nikhon Schuler scoring the final goal for the Jays. Hopkins would win the game 14-5.
The win, which was Head Coach Dave Pietramala’s 150th with the Jays, pushed the team’s record to 3-0. This is the fifth straight season Hopkins has won its first three games.
Though his team would play with a lead the entire game, Pietramala said he was disappointed in the game’s the fourth quarter.
“You look at today’s fourth quarter: 0-4 facing off, 11-4 [Michigan] groundballs, 17-3 [Michigan] shots, and 4-7 on clearance. We didn’t understand how to play with a lead and we didn’t have the maturity to continue to do the things that got us the lead. So I think we did a great job for three quarters. I think we forced the shots that we wanted, we got a lot of shots, and we got a lot of good shots early. In the fourth quarter we didn’t win a faceoff or play defense the whole quarter, and they generated a bunch of shots. I’m really thrilled with three quarters of our lacrosse and really disappointed with the fourth,” Pietramala said.
The Jays now turn their attention ninth ranked Princeton University, whom they will visit this Saturday at noon.
“Now it’s big boy lacrosse,” Pietramala said. “When you look at it and you start to run down the list of games, it’s big boy lacrosse now. I’m glad to be 3-0, that’s great, but the more important thing is that we’ve grown a little bit but we’ve got a lot more maturing to do.”
