The Blue Jays didn't need any magic from their famed Homewood field officials on this day, as they only trailed the game once off a pretty cut and shot from freshman Scott Sowanick. That was about the extent of the Princeton highlights, as the rest of day revolved around watching the athletic and talented Blue Jay offense put on a show.
Arguably the most athletic midfielder in college lacrosse, Kyle Harrison, started off the scoring for Hopkins with a right to right dodge and over hand shot for his first of four for the day. At the 5:11 mark in the first quarter Duke transfer Matt Rewkowski, swept with his left hand across the field and made a sweet no look feed to a cutting Kevin Boland who made one fake and shot into the net for a goal. Harrison closed out the scoring in the first quarter, with a move similar to his first goal, and even though the shot wasn't as impressive as his first, the ball still managed to find the back of the net.
The second quarter started similarly to the previous one, with Princeton again scoring first when Jay Doneger made a strong question mark move for a goal. Princeton again scored with 1:12 left in the quarter with a man-up goal by freshman Peter Trombino to cut the score to 6 to 3 and some shades of a close game were being shown. The quarter didn't have much excitement in it but this was just the calming before a storm of goals that were about to be unleashed from Hopkins, and primarily Connor Ford, in the second half to come.
The third quarter started with Drew Casino scoring a goal off a high bounce shot and cut the deficit to two, and most fans started to get the feeling that we might have a chance of watching a close lacrosse game today. But Hopkins apparently had a different blue print for how the rest of this game was going to be layed out and designed a eight goal run, with Connor Ford hammering out all four of his goals in that span. The lay out was as follows:
The ensuing face-off after the Casino goal found Kyle Harrison starting a fast break which ended with Connor Ford stinging a goal right off the left hip of the Princeton goalkeeper. With 13:45 Boland scored his second goal of the day with a high hard righty over hand shot. At 12:22 Ford made a crafty roll dodge to a low to low shot and goal. The quarter ended with Harrison showing off his preseason left handed shot reps with a right to left split pinging the top left corner of the net.
The fourth quarter had four goals all scored by Hopkins. Freshman Jake Byrne started it off with a man-up goal. Connor Ford had two back to back goals both righty crank shots that left the Princeton goalie dumbfounded on how to even read Ford's shot let alone save it. Rewkowski ended the scoring for the day off a sweet feed from Boland, and that was all she wrote for the scoring on the day.
Two names that were surprisingly left off the score sheet were First Team All-Americans Kyle Barrie and Ryan Boyle. Barrie appeared to be forcing some shots and feeds early in the game, and Boyle couldn't run by his defender or find an open man all day.
All and all I feel Princeton definitely didn't put its best foot forward, but even if the did i don't know if they have the firepower to keep up with a team such as Hopkins. After watching this game though it is making me pretty anxious for April 17th, when for the 100th time in history Johns Hopkins University will be facing the University of Maryland. Because if there is one team out there that can stop this explosive offense of Hopkins, it has to be Passavia, Zink and the rest of the boys from College Park.
