PISCATAWAY, N.J. — For the second time in six days, Maryland men’s lacrosse built a four-goal lead over Johns Hopkins in the first half. And for the second consecutive game, the Terps were helpless in their attempts to stop the Blue Jays’ subsequent rally.
Maryland entered halftime with a 6-2 lead following a dominant defensive display in the second quarter. But when the teams returned to the field for the second half, the game began to resemble the one-sided affair of last Saturday’s Johns Hopkins win.
No. 2-seed Johns Hopkins poured in 10 second-half scores in the rematch Thursday night and held No. 3-seed Maryland to one goal in its 12-7 Big Ten tournament semifinal win over the Terps at HighPoint.com Stadium.
“You knew they were going to make a little bit of a run,” coach John Tillman said. “We just didn’t do enough in that third quarter to stave that off.”
In the last matchup against Maryland, Johns Hopkins scored at will and made necessary defensive adjustments to slow the Terps’ quick 5-1 start. In that 16-11 win, the Blue Jays decisively outshot Maryland and controlled the game’s last 45 minutes.
The Big Ten semifinal win offered a similar showing following halftime, as Johns Hopkins outshot the Terps 44-28 and committed 10 fewer turnovers to overwhelm Tillman’s defense in the final 30 minutes.
During the first quarter, while the Terps were probing the Johns Hopkins defense, Maryland goalkeeper Danny Dolan held the Blue Jays’ offense in check with four saves in the first seven minutes of the game.
Dolan’s efforts helped keep the game scoreless until Maryland broke through midway into the opening quarter. A quick passing sequence broke down the Blue Jays’ cohesive defense, and the ball ended up in attackman Louis Dubick’s stick in front of the crease for the interior score.
The goal was the first of a four-score effort in the first quarter, doubling up Johns Hopkins on the scoreboard at the end of the opening 15 minutes.
In the second quarter, midfielder Roman Puglise recovered a tough ground ball on the defensive half of the field and immediately absorbed an illegal crosscheck.
As the official’s flag flew to the turf, Puglise — still with possession — got to his feet and advanced the ball to the offensive half. Seconds later, Bernhardt unleashed a right-handed shot for his second goal of the game.
On the extra-man opportunity resulting from the hit Puglise took, attackman Logan Wisnauskas received a pass from DeMaio for the 6-on-5 score that gave the Terps a 6-2 lead.
That two-goal sequence within 49 seconds, combined with a stout defensive effort, allowed Maryland to take a four-goal advantage into the halftime break.
But despite Maryland’s halftime lead, Johns Hopkins coach Dave Pietramala felt the game was playing out similar to Saturday’s, when the Blue Jays held a 9-6 advantage at the break. His team was outshooting the Terps once again, but Dolan was making saves to preclude the scoring success.
“When you look at shots in the first half, the only difference was saves and goals,” Pietramala said. “The half was so eerily similar, yet the difference in score was dramatic.”
After surrendering the program’s most goals since 2013 against the Blue Jays on Saturday night, Maryland’s defense matched its best defensive showing for a half this season. But the stout defense did not carry over into the second half, as the Terps relinquished their early lead just as they did mere days ago.
Johns Hopkins reeled off five goals from five different scorers, capped off by Epstein’s extra-man shot from the wing, to take its first lead of the night at 7-6.
“We’ve been preaching this ‘reset button’ basically,” Blue Jays goalkeeper Ryan Darby said. “So after a game or after a goal, whatever happens, you just hit the reset button and focus on whatever’s coming next.”
Maryland leveled the score early in the fourth quarter, with Bernhardt shaking off his defender and firing home after wrapping around the crease. But Johns Hopkins had the answer. Concannon nailed a wide-open shot, and attackman Cole Williams’ followed with a score resulting from a Terps’ turnover.
The second-seeded Blue Jays added three more to solidify the result and propel themselves into the Big Ten championship bout on Saturday night against Penn State. Meanwhile, Tillman’s squad will have to wait until Sunday to see how two consecutive losses impact its NCAA-tournament seeding.
“They just got momentum,” Bernhardt said. “We had our run in the beginning, then they started to get theirs. And, you know, obviously they were able to put it on us.”
