In front of a crowd of over 5,000 people, the Blue Jays came up with the upset over the No. 6 Syracuse University Orange. Sophomore attacker Cole Williams led the Blue Jays with four goals and one assist in an 18-7 rout of Syracuse in New York’s Carrier Dome.
Despite the Orange dominating in shots, ending with 46 to the Blue Jays’ 25, Hopkins was able to secure the lead by only turning the ball over eight times. The Blue Jays jumped out to a 3-0 lead and never turned back.
Hopkins went into halftime with a 7-2 lead with help from senior attacker Brinton Valis, junior attacker Kyle Marr and Williams. After halftime, the Orange answered an early goal by Hopkins but never went on a run to make the game close. Senior goalie Brock Turnbaugh was a big reason why Syracuse’s offense was limited. He led the defense and finished the game with 10 saves and an impressive 59 percent save percentage.
Senior attacker Shack Stanwick scored back-to-back goals in the third quarter in part of a five-goal run that was capped by a goal by Marr to put the Blue Jays up 13-3. From then on, the game was all but wrapped up in favor of the Jays, who finished the game with a 18-7 victory.
Hopkins impressed on Saturday by not only beating a top-10 team by more than 10 goals but by also having 10 people in the score column. Junior midfielder Alex Concannon continued to impress coming off of an injury with three goals and two assists. Senior midfielder Joel Tinney finished with four assists, tying a career high to help the Blue Jays get the win.
More noteworthy scoring came from freshman attacker Connor DeSimone, who scored three goals and is seeing more and more playing time as the season progresses.
“I just do my best to make a play when my name is called. We did a great job of sharing the ball [on Saturday], and I happened to be on the receiving end of a few of them,” DeSimone said.
DeSimone has shown he can play and compete right away in the D-I level, with six goals on the season already.
Hopkins also found success through their face-off wins. Leading the effort was senior face-off specialist Hunter Moreland, who won 17 of the 26 face-offs on Saturday. Additionally, he picked up six ground balls to finish the game.
His dominance at the X, especially in the second half, allowed for the Blue Jays to put the game away. After the throttle of the Orange on Saturday, the Blue Jays moved up in the national rankings from No. 17 to No. 10, and Syracuse moved from No. 6 to No. 13.
The Blue Jays built off the momentum from Saturday on Tuesday night, when they faced off against the Retrievers of the neighboring University of Maryland, Baltimore County. While the game did not start out as the Jays may have wanted, the end result was certainly something to be proud of.
The Jays’ offense sputtered in the first half, not scoring until there was one second left in the first quarter. At that point, the score was 2-1 in favor of the Retrievers, but the Hopkins defense would dominate the remainder of the game.
The Jays would hold the Retrievers scoreless for the next 38 minutes of game time, during which they managed to score 10 goals of their own from the time they were down 2-0 to push the lead to 10-2 with just over seven minutes remaining in the game.
Hopkins would ride that run through the rest of the game, winning by a final score of 13-6 to improve to 4-2 on the season, including three consecutive wins.
Stanwick finished the game with three goals and four assists, leading the Jays in both categories. Marr, Williams, DeSimone and freshman attacker Brett Baskin all contributed two goals of their own, and Tinney chipped in a goal with a pair of assists.
Hopkins again could attribute much of their success to the face-offs, which they went 16-21 on, including Moreland’s individual 12-15 record, tacked on to his eight ground balls in the game.
“My main focus is to get my teammates the ball, and they do the rest,” Moreland said.
The Blue Jays head back to the historic Homewood Field on Saturday, March 17 as they welcome the University of Delaware. The first face-off is set for 3 p.m.
