Johns Hopkins not fretting about disputed no-goal call
Johns Hopkins fans have bemoaned an official’s ruling that senior attackman Kyle Wharton was guilty of a crease violation before scoring the apparent game-winning goal with four seconds left in overtime Saturday against top-ranked Syracuse.
Instead, the Orange got a goal from senior attackman Stephen Keogh in the second extra session, and the No. 9 Blue Jays were left with their second loss of the season. But coach Dave Pietramala said the controversial ruling is in the team’s rearview mirror.
“They said he dove. Listen, it’s one play in a series of plays that happen throughout a game,” he said Tuesday. “And while it’s one that stands out to a lot of people, there were other plays that we could have made to win the game. So it’s not something that we’re harping on. We’ve moved on, and we’re getting ready for Virginia.”
That’s probably a good decision considering that the No. 2 Cavaliers (7-1), who will visit Homewood Field on Saturday, have won the last six meetings and 10 of the last 14 games against Johns Hopkins (5-2).
The contest pits the most prolific offense in Division I (Virginia has scored an average of 14.5 goals per game) against the country’s stingiest defense (The Blue Jays have allowed an average of 5.4 goals).
But is it too much to ask the defense to repeat its performance from Saturday when the unit held Syracuse to six goals under its season average?
“We did a good job in that game, and we did what we needed to do in that game to put ourselves in a position to be successful,” Pietramala said. “That becomes more challenging as teams get more film on you, and as you play better teams. But that was the No. 1 team in the country. So we’re pleased with that effort, but we know we made a bunch of mistakes, and we know we’ve got to clean some things up. We can do a better job there and we’ll have to. It was a day where the offense wasn’t in a great rhythm and wasn’t putting the ball in the back of the net. So it was our [defense’s] job to step up and play well – just like if there’s a day where we’re having trouble defensively got to and can’t get stops, it’s their [the offense’s] job to step up and score some goals.”
Similarly, Pietramala said he’s not interested in being comforted with the notion of making Syracuse sweat.
“We expected to go up there and win. That was the plan,” he said. “… We played well enough to win that game, but we didn’t win, and life’s not fair. You move on and you learn from the experience and you take some confidence from it, but there are no moral victories here. Everybody keeps saying, ‘Well, what a great job you guys did.’ We went up there expecting to win. How can you not?”
