The game ended the way it began.
Two minutes into play, sophomore attackman Ryan Brown gave fifth ranked Hopkins a 1-0 lead against 10th ranked Princeton. Fast forward 50 minutes and it was Brown scoring again to put the finishing touch on a dominating 15-9 victory.
Sandwiched in between, Brown contributed three more goals and three assists for a career high eight-point game. It was not just Brown, though, who secured the win as six of his teammates also tallied goals.
After Brown’s first score, the Blue Jays fell behind 2-1 early in the first quarter. Brown answered the pair of Princeton goals with one of his own to tie the game at two. The teams traded goals twice more and exited the first quarter in a 4-4 tie.
30 seconds into the second quarter, sophomore midfielder Holden Cattoni scored on an unassisted goal to put Hopkins up 5-4.
The Blue Jays would never look back.
Cattoni’s goal sparked an 8-1 run that spanned roughly 18 minutes across the second and third quarters. Junior attackman Wells Stanwick followed Cattoni’s lead, sandwiching goals around a Princeton score to put the Jays up 7-5. Senior captain Rob Guida then contributed his first goal of the day on an assist from sophomore midfielder Connor Reed, who then followed with a goal of his own with four seconds left in the half.
Guida began the second half with his second goal just 45 seconds into play on an assist from Brown. Brown then secured his hat trick with a goal of his own. Four minutes later, Brown was back to assisting, as his pass allowed senior attackman Brandon Benn to score and extend his consecutive games with a goal up to 20. Benn’s goal ended the run and saw Hopkins take a commanding 12-5 lead halfway through the third quarter.
The last five minutes of the quarter saw the Jays unravel a bit, as Princeton scored three consecutive goals. Head Coach Dave Pietramala spoke about the team’s problem of letting its opponents get back into the game, suggesting a necessity for the team to learn to play with a lead. His team left entered the fourth quarter up 12-8 with a lot left to prove.
Despite a late lead and a tendency to relax late in one-sided games, like last week’s performance against Michigan (outscored 2-1 in the fourth quarter), Hopkins continued the scoring barrage, scoring a season-high three goals in the fourth quarter.
Naturally, the scoring began with the same person it always seemed to begin with this game: Brown. He put one in the back of the net two minutes into the fourth on Guida’s second assist of the day. Freshman midfielder Cody Radziewicz scored his second goal in as many games. Princeton answered just 10 seconds later to make it a 14-9 game with about 12 minutes left.
With eight and half minutes remaining, Stanwick extended his team lead in assists to 15 on a pass to Brown, who promptly extended his team lead in goals to 12. In just four games, Stanwick has already amassed more than half of his last year’s assists total (23), while Brown is just five away from tying his goals scored from last season (17). Brown’s goal would finish the scoring as senior goalie Eric Schneider collected his fourth win on 13 saves.
The victory gave the Jays their fourth consecutive victory to start the season and pushed their rank up to fourth in the nation, behind Maryland, Virginia and Duke, two of whom they will play in the coming weeks.
While the win gives the Blue Jays momentum, it hides the fact that the team was outshot (35-37), out-cleared (15-16) and lost the turnover (14-7) and ground ball (26-30) battles. The turnovers in particular must be a cause for concern for Pietramala, as the team has turned the ball over 66 times in the past four games while causing only 52 in the same span. Pietramala has spoken about the need to “clean up” the play in the past, as the team is an atrocious 44th in the nation in turnovers allowed (16.5).
Hopkins returns to play this Saturday, March 8 at UMBC. The Jays, who are currently tied for the ninth scoring offense and the 13th scoring defense in the nation, will look to extend the winning streak to five games.
