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After lean years, Johns Hopkins men’s lacrosse is back in national title contention

edward lee, baltimore sun
·5 min read

When Garrett Degnon had to choose between the men’s lacrosse teams at Duke, Johns Hopkins, Maryland and Yale for his college destination, the Harwood native remembered watching defenseman Tucker Durkin and midfielder Patrick Fraser play for the Blue Jays at Homewood Field.

Those memories — as well as the program’s 44 national championships, including nine NCAA Division I titles — convinced Degnon to select Johns Hopkins.

“The older I got, the more I began to understand the history of Hopkins lacrosse,” said Degnon, now a graduate student attackman. “We have the most national championships out of anyone, and the excellence of that history and the challenge of upholding that standard was something that was interesting to me.”

This spring, the Blue Jays might be closer to repeating that history. They are 10-3, ranked No. 2 in the latest Inside Lacrosse media poll and captured their first outright Big Ten regular-season crown.

As the top seed in the Big Ten Tournament hosted by Ohio State, Johns Hopkins will meet No. 4 seed Michigan (8-6) in the first of two semifinals Thursday for the right to advance to Saturday’s final, where a potential rematch with archrival and No. 2 seed Maryland (8-4) looms. The Blue Jays are well-equipped for a deep run and could be a candidate for the NCAA Final Four in Philadelphia along with No. 1 Notre Dame, No. 5 Virginia and No. 6 Duke, according to Big Ten Network analyst Mark Dixon.

“I do think they are a team that has a legitimate shot to play on Memorial Day weekend and potentially Memorial Day,” said Dixon, a Catonsville native and Loyola Blakefield graduate who played midfield at Johns Hopkins from 1991 to 1994. “But you could also say that for Denver, and you could say that for Penn State, and you could say that for Cornell.”

With great success comes great expectations, and the Blue Jays have never been immune to high standards. They last won an NCAA championship in 2007, and a four-year stretch with only one quarterfinal appearance in 2018 contributed to the decision in 2020 not to renew the contract of coach Dave Pietramala, a U.S. Lacrosse Hall of Fame defenseman who guided the school to national titles in 2005 and 2007.

Enter Peter Milliman, who led Cornell in 2018 to its first Ivy League Tournament crown since 2011 and the NCAA quarterfinals and had worked under current Johns Hopkins athletic director Jennifer S. Baker. Despite Milliman’s newness to Baltimore, he didn’t have to wait very long before getting questioned by alumni and fans.

“I think if I came here without expecting that, I would be delusional,” he said. “I remember alums asking me early how long until we win again, and I kind of had the same answer. It’s just a matter of how well we continue to grow together.”

Dixon noted that Milliman’s hiring rocked the boat because he is the first coach without an affiliation to the Blue Jays since Tony Seaman helmed the program from 1991 to 1998.

“And throw a pandemic on top of it where people don’t have access to him or the kids at a golf outing or senior weekend or the alumni game,” Dixon said. “There are guys who lost friends over it because they supported the new staff or didn’t support the new staff. That’s how deep this thing runs.”

The Blue Jays’ first two seasons under Milliman went poorly. Although the 2021 squad upset Penn State and Rutgers in the Big Ten Tournament before falling to Maryland by two goals in the final, their combined record in 2021 and 2022 was 11-18, and the 2022 campaign included a 22-7 shellacking by the Terps at Homewood Field in the regular-season finale. Promising players such as attackman Owen Murphy and midfielder Alex Concannon transferred, and Milliman wasn’t shy about publicly calling out players.

Despite the shortcomings, graduate student defenseman Beaudan Szuluk said his faith in Milliman’s vision never wavered.

“It’s not an easy place to win,” said Szuluk, who is the program’s career leader in caused turnovers. “Having the high level of academics and being in a conference like the Big Ten, it attracts a certain type of person and personality, and I think those are the types of kids that Coach Milliman wants on his team. I think we really pride ourselves on embodying the qualities that exist within Hopkins lacrosse.”

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Last year, Johns Hopkins went 12-6 overall and 4-1 in the Big Ten before dropping a closer-than-anticipated 12-9 decision to eventual NCAA champion Notre Dame in the quarterfinals. This spring, the Blue Jays have been even better, going 5-0 to become the fifth team in Big Ten history to go undefeated in the conference and are currently riding a six-game winning streak.

Milliman has mined the transfer portal well. Senior attackman and Spalding graduate Russell Melendez (Marquette), Szuluk (Lafayette) and graduate student goalkeeper Chayse Ierlan (Cornell) are starters, and graduate student short-stick defensive midfielder Brandon Aviles has chipped in off the bench.

If Milliman were inclined to gloat, this would be that time.

“It’s a very easy thing to feel a bit of value when you shut somebody up or throw it in their face,” he acknowledged. “But I don’t think it’s worth wasting our time or our effort working towards that. If we’re focused on the outside, then it’s distracting and wasting resources that go into planning a better version of us.”

Even a loss to Michigan in the Big Ten semifinals on Thursday might not be damaging enough to persuade the selection committee to remove an NCAA Tournament first-round game from Homewood Field next weekend. But that’s a scenario Degnon and his teammates would prefer to avoid as they aim for a berth in the Final Four on Memorial Day weekend at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia.

“We’ve proven it this year that we can beat anyone in the country,” he said. “But we’ve also proven that if we don’t bring it on any given day, we can take a loss. So we absolutely have the ability, and I look forward to showing that.”

Big Ten Tournament semifinals

No. 2 Johns Hopkins vs. No. 17 Michigan

In Columbus, Ohio

Thursday, 6 p.m.

TV: Big Ten Network