It’s early March, which means it’s time to renew the historic Syracuse v. Johns Hopkins rivalry for the 64th time.
The annual meeting between the two biggest blue bloods in the sport is always a big one, and this year is no exception as the No. 10 Orange and the No. 11 Blue Jays play for more than bragging rights at historic Homewood Field. There’s a huge non-conference win up for grabs as teams look to bolster their resumes and strengthen their conferences’ RPI as we approach the mid-point of the regular
season.
Opening face-off from Baltimore is set for 1 PM on ESPN+.
Hopkins is off to a good start to the season at 4-1. They started the year with wins over Robert Morris, Towson and Loyola before an eight-goal setback against North Carolina, 17-9.
Last weekend, they had their backs against the wall in a big way down in Charlottesville, where they trailed Virginia, 11-4, in the middle of the third quarter. They turned it all around, scoring 10 of the last 12 goals to emerge with a huge, 14-13 win over the Cavaliers.
So, both teams are coming off dramatic wins heading into today’s festivities.
Face-offs
Hopkins’ face-off story has been ugly the last two games without starter Joe Hobot, going only 21-of-60 as a team (.350). In the first three games, Hobot went 37-of-58 (.638).
The truth of the matter is, though, that it doesn’t really matter for Syracuse as long as Johnny Mullen doesn’t figure out his current funk. It’s been a bit of a nightmare the past few weeks for Mullen, who went 25-of-53 against the three Ivy opponents (.472).
It’s been a mental battle for him, as he’s had a real problem reacting to/anticipating the whistle. He seems to either jump and commit a violation or react slowly and lose the draw.
Importantly, he did figure it out late against Penn to help complete the comeback, but he’s been in a bad way, especially by his standards, the past few weeks. As usual, it will be an important battle to help gain more possession for a ‘Cuse offense that’s been struggling with their own rhythm of late.
Defense
Hopkins is kind of a weird team to figure out how to defend. In a rarity, their starting midfield is actually outscoring their starting attack so far this season, headlined by leading scorer Matt Collison.
Collison (18 points) is joined by Chuck Rawson (16), brother of Ted, and Brooks English (13), brother of Sammy, on the first-line midfield. Collison is the big bruiser at 6’4”, 225, Rawson is the sniper at .381 shooting, and English leads the team in assists with 11.
The attack is Hunter Chauvette (16), Jimmy Ayers (15) and Charlie Iler (12). Chauvette is the key for them. A pure goal scorer, all 16 of his points this year and 53 of his 62 career points are goals. He’s a time-and-room scorer who’s shooting a career-high 39 percent this season. Whoever draws Chauvette must stick to him like glue, because giving him any kind of space to step into a shot is a terrible mistake.
The Blue Jays don’t have much depth in terms of their scoring, at least not so far. Their starting six have accounted for 90 of their 113 points this season, just under 80 percent. Individually, nobody outside their starting lineup has scored more than three points all year.
How the Orange line-up defensively against the Blue Jays will be fascinating. They’re primarily a small offense outside of Collison, which is the kind of team that Gait has taken Jordan Beck out of the lineup and moved Chuck Kuczynski down to close against. Not sure this game makes sense for Beck, with so many small, shifty guys to defend.
The main question is who draws Collison. Size-wise, the answer would be Billy Dwan, but does Gait want to move Dwan away from down low and onto a midfielder? Does he keep Kuczynski at LSM and put him on Collison? What role do Beck, Vincent Bolognino and Joe Filardi play? And, of course, how to deploy new Tewaaraton Watch List addition Riley Figueiras when there isn’t an obvious alpha quarterbacking option to go against?
The defense has been great ever since their rough first quarter against Princeton, but getting the matchups right will be critical in this one.
Offense
And speaking of, there’s been a lot of movement in the offensive lineup all season as the coaching staff looks to take advantage of certain matchups.
A big key in this game may come down to the likely matchup of Joey Spallina versus JHU captain Quintan Kilrain, the Blue Jays top defensive threat. ‘Cuse’s offense has really struggled this year when Spallina hasn’t been the best version of himself like he was in the first three games, and if they want to avoid grinding one out like they did against Penn, they’re going to need Joey to do some damage there.
As for the rest of the group, where will Gait feel he needs to deploy Michael Leo, Finn Thomson and Payton Anderson, the three players he’s used as interchangeable between the attack and midfield. And how about the impact of Wyatt Hottle, Bogue Hahn and Matt McIntee coming out of the box? This should be an interesting test for a ‘Cuse offense looking to get their mojo going.
In goal for JHU, freshman Dash Lamitie has started every game but struggled to a .480 save percentage. Against Virginia, Lamitie was taken out after nine minutes, four goals and zero saves. Senior Oran Gelinas came in and made 12 saves in relief with a .571 save percentage to help get the win. So, what might the Orange be facing in goal for this one?
