UVa. men’s lacrosse struggles continue in big loss to Johns Hopkins

No. 10 Johns Hopkins (6-2) scored nine goals in a row to pace the Blue Jays’ 15-8 triumph over the No. 10 Virginia Cavaliers (5-4) on Saturday afternoon, inside M&T Bank Stadium.  Not only did the Blue Jays win the Konica Minolta Face-Off Classic, but also won the quest for the Doyle Smith Cup for the third year in a row. From 2006-10, Virginia won the first five meetings the cup was awarded to the regular season winner of the UVa and Johns Hopkins series. The Blue Jays current streak began in 2011.

“I thought we were too tentative in the first half,” Virginia head coach Dom Starsia said. “Johns Hopkins had a lot to do with that. They are a big and strong defensive team, and it takes a lot of work during each one of your chances [on offense]. I thought they shot the ball well early and that was somewhat of the difference. Some of those unsettled goals and the goals off the faceoff kind of killed us and put us too far behind the eight ball. We showed some glimmer of something in the second half, but not a great deal of solace with that.”

The game was scoreless for over the first six minutes, but Johns Hopkins finally broke through at 8:56 when Wells Stanwick found Brandon Benn for the game’s first goal. On the ensuing faceoff Mike Poppleton won the draw and raced straight down the alley and ripped the nylon for an early Johns Hopkins 2-0 lead.

Virginia’s Mark Cockerton tallied an unassisted goal at 7:25 to cut Johns Hopkins’ lead to 2-1. Johns Hopkins scored seven consecutive goals to take a 9-1 lead into intermission. It was the fewest goals scored in a half by a UVa team since going scoreless for the first 42:53 at No. 2 Duke on April 16, 2005.

Johns Hopkins scored two more goals to start the third quarter, running its streak to nine consecutive goals. It wasn’t until the 5:58 mark in the third quarter when Virginia scored again as Nick O’Reilly unassisted goal cut the lead to 9-2, ending a 31:28 scoring drought.

Less than a minute later at 4:36, Owen Van Arsdale found Cockerton for the extra-man goal. Cockerton scored again at 2:18 on an O’Reilly pass for UVa’s third straight goal, cutting Johns Hopkins’ lead to 11-4.

Cockerton and Charlie Streep each scored twice and Rob Emery added a goal in the fourth quarter as Virginia outscored Johns Hopkins in the second half, 7-6.

Cockerton tallied his eighth career hat trick and led UVa with four goals. Streep tallied his first multi-goal game of his Virginia career and 23rd of his collegiate career. UVa goalie Rhody Heller saved a career-high 13 shots inside the cage.

Virginia returns to action on March 30 when No. 1 Maryland comes to Klöckner Stadium. Faceoff is slated for 2 p.m. and the game will be televised live on ESPNU in HD.