UVA Lax vs. John's Hopkins

My dear, dear friend Paul is a huge lacrosse fan, and was able to attend the UVA/Hopkins game this past weekend.  His report...

UVA Lacrosse vs. Johns Hopkins


I had the chance to watch the #2 ranked Hoos take on #11 JHU this weekend. Hopkins has been slipping (last year was their first sub-.500 season since 1971) and this was a chance for us to bury their young squad early in the season. Unfortunately, things didn’t work out that way. The Hoos lost a thriller, 12-11, with our front-line furiously attacking their net in the final seconds. It was really, really close. For me this is a ‘undergrad vs. grad school’ match, but I’ve always hated Hopkins lacrosse as well as their fans. Saturday was no different.

Despite the Hoos being mere inches/seconds from tying this thing up at the end of regulation, I left the stadium feeling mostly pessimistic about our showing. While we absolutely have one of the most talented rosters in the NCAA, the team looked sluggish, confused, and unprepared for two and a half, almost three quarters of play. We had several really dumb penalties that hurt us at key moments. There was little cohesion between units, and while the Hopkins attack was having its way with our D, our offense was relying WAY too much on the Bratton twins making athletic moves and trying to get open shots. These shots usually ended up being fairly well defended, and were often way off the net. Oh and as usual, we were getting owned on the face-offs.

I don’t know what happened in the middle of the third quarter, but everything changed. Ground balls started going our way, we won some face-offs, and the offense started clicking. We scored 4 goals in a 63 second span. Give some credit to Hopkins, because they hung in there through the Wahoo run, and eventually regained their composure and put this thing away, scoring the go-ahead goal with less than two minutes left.

If we’re gonna make any hay in the NCAA tournament, we’re gonna need to see 4 solid quarters of play, not this garbage I mostly saw on Saturday.

The loss dropped us to #4 in the rankings. Everybody knows the team has talent, but they’re gonna have to get it together a little bit to beat teams like Syracuse and Duke.

Just noticed Notre Dame at #2? Yeah I’m not buying that, people. You’re a football school, ND. Stop pretending in lacrosse like you did in hoops this season.

Great stuff, Paulie!  Thank you for offering it up to the mighty Wahooze.  I really, really appreciate it.