Johns Hopkins attackman Ryan Brown performs a Superman pose after he scores a goal during the Terps’ 12-15 loss to the Johns Hopkins Blue Jays on April 25, 2015.
With 14 minutes, 17 seconds remaining in the Terrapins men’s lacrosse team’s game against John Hopkins on Saturday night, Blue Jays long pole Michael Pellegrino passed to attackman Ryan Brown on the left side of the goal.
With the game knotted at 10, Brown ripped a shot into the top-right corner of the net to give the Blue Jays their first lead of the contest. The Sykesville native turned to the Johns Hopkins bench after the goal, put his hands over his chest and pulled them apart, mimicking Superman’s costume-revealing gesture as his teammates on the field sprinted to him to celebrate.
Through the first two months of the season, the No. 2 Terps had only once allowed more than eight goals in a game. And before Saturday night, the most they had surrendered in a contest was 10.
But the Terps’ top-ranked defense didn’t have an answer for Brown, who scored eight goals to lift the Blue Jays to a 15-12 win over the Terps at Byrd Stadium before an announced 9,343 fans. After Brown gave the Blue Jays their first lead of the contest early in the fourth quarter, they never looked back.
“I get into a rhythm and I can find my places easier,” Brown said. “It just starts rattling off.”
The Terps weren’t the first team to struggle containing the Blue Jays’ star. The junior extended his scoring streak to 29 games Saturday, and his seventh goal of the contest gave him 50 goals on the season, making him just the fourth player in Johns Hopkins’ history to reach the milestone.
Coach John Tillman’s defense did limit Brown in the first half, though. The Terps held him scoreless in the first quarter before he scored twice in the second period. But as the shootout continued after halftime, Brown wore down the Terps’ defense.
“A big thing for [offensive coordinator] Bobby Benson was to generate quality shots and not just come down and take the first one,” Johns Hopkins coach Dave Pietramala said. “We knew we were going to have to have extended possessions. That was the only way you were going to be able to find a crack in the defense. After the fourth or fifth time, you found a mismatch that was in your favor and then you can try and crack it. We had good shot selections from the right guys.”
To knot the game at 8-8 in the third quarter, Brown received a pass adjacent to the Terps’ goal in the far side alley. Instead of throwing a pass to escape the bad field position, Brown sprinted up the field, turned his body toward the Terps’ goal and fired the ball into the bottom-right corner.
And in the fourth quarter, Brown exploded for half his goals on the day.
Brown scored twice in the first 43 seconds of the second quarter and added a third with 11:27 remaining, pushing Johns Hopkins’ lead to 13-10. His final goal with 2:01 left capped a six-goal run that put the game out of reach for the Terps.
“You have to give credit to Ryan tonight,” Terps defender Matt Dunn said. “He had an outstanding game and shot the ball very well. With a team that’s that talented, you have to focus on the bigger picture and execute better than we did tonight.”
Against a Terps squad that had won 11 straight games behind a stout defense, Brown was able to find openings other teams hadn’t. And his eight-goal outing was enough to hand the Terps their first loss since February.
“His teammates do a really good job of looking for him,” Tillman said. “He’s got a great release, and he changes things up. Bobby Benson does a great job of putting him in spots. He’s a pretty darn good offensive player and a player that certainly stuck his shots tonight.”
