The story of the game was the play of the two teams' goalies. Carcaterra excelled from start to finish, making 25 brillant saves along with helping his team clear the ball in tough situations, showing everyone that he is ready for the playoffs. On the other hand, Loyola's Jason Born had a fairly average day in goal for the Greyhounds. Born made two solid saves in the opening minutes of the game, but would be shaky most of the day, closing out with only nine total saves and a minute rest in the box for an after-the-whistle trip. Johns Hopkins scored first and would never fall behind Loyola throughout the entire game, always seeming to have a one or two goal lead at the least. Hopkins'#24-Conor Denihan circled around from behind to the right side, dodged by his man, beat a weak Loyola slide, and found twine for the first goal of the game. On the following faceoff Hopkins struck again quickly, as Adam Doneger hit Bobby Benson on the crease, who finished into the lower right corner to put the Blue Jays up 2-0. Carcaterra made two jumping saves to help slow down the Loyola offense, with the Greyhounds finally getting on the board on a man-up goal by David Fields, who converted on an unsettled situation after a failed man-down clear by Hopkins. Bobby Benson got matched up against a Loyola short-stick off a missed Hopkins shot. He then proceeded to take his man from the lower left sideline and finish off his second goal of the day for a 3-1 Hopkins lead. Another Carcaterra save led immediately to an outlet pass to Rob Frattarola, who nailed Conor Denihan flying out of the substitution box. Denihan scores the transition goal to put the Jays up by 3 at 4-1. Coach Cottle calls a timeout as his Greyhounds were clearing the ball, with Tim Goettelmann finishing off an unassisted goal right out of the break in action to put the game at 4-2 in JHU's favor. Hopkins' AJ Haugen pulls his man way out on top and then shows that he is one of the fastest and best midfielders in the country as he sweeps to his left and ropes one on the run into the upper right, 5-2 JHU. Loyola kills the end of the first quarter in order to maintain man-up possession for the start of the second quarter.

Carcaterra stuffs Tim Goettelmann as he wraps around the right pipe on the Loyola man-up, but Mike Battista gets in the scoring column as he gains control of the ball, roll-dodges his man from up top and sticks one righty on the run, 5-3 JHU. Hopkins' Haugen fires one righty from up top, which Born is able to get a piece of, but is unable to control as Benson picks up the loose rebound for a man-up garbage goal for Hopkins. On one of Hopkins next settled possessions #32-Tim Muir drove the left side from up top and slipped a feed to Benson on the crease who scored low and away, upping Hopkins' lead to 7-3 in the second quarter. This is where the game could of gotten out of control early in the first half except that Loyola kept plugging away on the offensive end. A missed crease feed to Tim Goettelmann takes one bounce and finds itself in Bobby Horsey's stick on the backside, who then throws tha ball into an open net, 7-4 JHU. A little luck for Loyola is erased by a lot of hard work by Eric Wiedin, who wins the face-off and then hits Frattarola for an unsettled Hopkins goal -- back to a 4 goal lead at 8-4 Hopkins. AJ Haugen does it again as he apears to almost effortlessly drive to his left from up top (with a long-pole on his hands the entire time) and sticks one over Born's left shoulder into the upper right corner, 9-4 JHU. Carcaterra makes two sick saves on a Loyola unsettled situation which results in a Loyola man-up off a late hit call against Hopkins, which the Greyhounds are unable to covert on at the 4:20 mark of the second quarter. On Loyola's next settled possession Tim Goettelmann tucks the ball tight in his right hand, drives the right pipe and wraps a goal around Carc to make it 9-5. Battista grabs the groundball off of the face-off, splits two Hopkins defenders at the same time, draws a flag on a Hopkins slash, drives the right side of the box and skips a nasty bounce shot into the top shelf to bring the game back to within 3 at 9-6, getting the Loyola fans back on their feet. With only three seconds left in the first half, Loyola scored a huge goal when DJ Knott clears the ball from box-to-box and hits T. Goettelmann, who rips one to bring the 'Hounds back to two goals of the Blue Jays, 9-7.

Hopkins came out of the gates flying, scoring five first quarter goals, while holding Loyola to only two goals on Carcaterra's fantastic play in the hoop. Loyola dug their heels in and, although they didn't grab the game's lead in the second quarter, they showed that they weren't going to roll over and play dead. The Greyhounds put up five of their own second quarter goals with an attack spearheaded by Tim Goettelmann and Mike Battista. The Hopkins offense and defense came out with a full head of steam, extremely excited to get it on, but the Greyhounds took a little bit longer in order to get going. The Loyola offense were starting to break through the Hopkins defense a little more in the second quarter, but their defense had no solid answers to the Hopkins offense and their multiple weapons.

Hopkins came out of the lockeroom with a whole bunch of questions for the Loyola defense in the second half, few of which the hometeam 'Hounds could answer. Any momentum that Loyola might have grabbed late in the second quarter was completely squashed as Hopkins scores right away off another Benson goal assisted by Dan Denihan. Conor Denihan gets a favorable matchup against Bobby Horsey, then exploits the right half of the field and sneaks one by Born stick-side-high. These two quick Hopkins goals, a diving Carcaterra save, followed by a point-blank stuff of Gavin Prout keeps the score at 11-7 JHU. After getting stuffed by Carcaterra, Prout grabs a misguided outlet pass and finishes off a successful Loyola ride for his team's first goal of the second half. Weiden wins another face-off for Hopkins and races down field towards the goal, but no Loyola player picked him up, so he went right on in and scored to make it 12-8 JHU. Following Weiden's unassisted goal off of the face-off, Loyola's goalie gets called for a trip, which puts the Greyhounds in a man-down situation. The Denihan brothers connect on the Blue Jay man-up as Dan feeds his brother from behind, Conor catches the ball up top and lets a hands free rocket go into the back of the net. Justin Shaberly scores one more goal for Hopkins before the third quarter ran out with the scoreboard reading 14-8 JHU. The third quarter was all Hopkins and was pretty much where the game was decided. Coming out of halftime, Loyola could off taken control of the game if they had locked it down on defense and put some up on offense. It was quite the contrary, as Hopkins, who already had a two goal halftime lead, came out in the third and scored five goals while holding Loyola to only one. Hopkins maintained control of the game throughout the fourth with Loyola scoring some meaningless goals in the last part of the game to make the game look a little closer then it really was. With today's loss, Loyola may have lost a first round bye in the playoffs. This might not be a bad thing though, since Loyola came off an opening round bye in 1999 only to get upset by an underdog Syracuse Orangemen team. Hopkins will bump up in the rankings, but probably not high enough for an opening round bye. We'll see on Selection Sunday exactly who will be getting what and playing who. The Blue Jays were clicking on almost all cylinders today with awesome goaltending, solid 6 on 6 defense, and scoring settled and unsettled goals. Hopkins put up 16 goals today, but not one of them was scored by their big-time attackman Dan Denihan. Watch out for Hopkins cause they are heating up at just the right time of the year. Oh yeah, don't overlook Loyola either because they have more then their share of solid players and workhorses.

Loyola vs. Johns Hopkins

Loyola

12

Scoring
Tim Goettelmann	(5, 0)
Mike Battista	(3, 0)
Michael Sullivan	(0, 1)
Dj Knott	(0, 1)
David Mascarella	(1, 0)
David Fields	(1, 0)
Gavin Prout	(1, 0)
Bobby Horsey	(1, 0)

Saves
Jason Born	9 (0.360)

Current Record
Loyola	11-2

Johns Hopkins

16

Scoring
Conor Denihan	(4, 1)
Bobby Benson	(5, 0)
Dan Denihan	(0, 2)
Rob Frattarola	(1, 1)
Adam Doneger	(1, 1)
Aj Haugen	(2, 0)
Eric Wedin	(1, 1)
Dave Rabuano	(1, 0)
Justin Shaberly	(1, 0)
Tim Muir	(0, 1)

Saves
Brian Carcaterra	25 (0.676)

Current Record
Johns Hopkins	8-3