Postscript from Johns Hopkins vs. UMBC
It’s been documented that Johns Hopkins has fared well when it wins the battle for groundballs. The No. 14 Blue Jays have also proven that they can be dangerous when their midfielders are creating scoring opportunities.
In Saturday’s 16-5 demolition of UMBC at the Konica Minolta Face-Off Classic at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore, the offense ran quickly and smoothly – in part – due to the playmaking abilities of the midfielders.
Sophomore John Ranagan scored twice and assists on three others, freshman Rob Guida scored a goal, and sophomore John Greeley assisted on one.
Those might not be the kind of numbers the midfielders from Virginia and Notre Dame produce, but coach Dave Pietramala said Johns Hopkins places other responsibilities on the midfield.
“We’ve asked the middies to be more assertive,” he said. “People watch us play, it’s not about how many goals our midfielders have. It’s, ‘How many slides did they draw?’ There can be a game where they really assert themselves, and they don’t have many goals, but they drew slides and then the attack benefits from those slides. So we’ve asked the middies to be more assertive. We’ve asked the attack to be good off the second pass. … So I think today, we actually got into a rhythm, which was hard the other night because they held the ball. I thought our midfielders were unselfish.”
Ranagan said there’s no competition nor pressure on either the attack or the midfield to lead the offense.
“So far this year, there’s been games when the attack has really stepped up, and there’s been other games when our midfield has had a lot of points,” he said. “But today, I thought all six of us on the field played great today. It’s nice when it all works together.”
Other notes:
*On three occasions in the first half, the Retrievers cut into the Blue Jays’ lead with a goal and boost their self-esteem. But Johns Hopkins responded with goal each time, taking 59 seconds, nine seconds and 77 seconds to regain the lead and momentum. “It takes all that momentum that you just got, and you lose it,” UMBC coach Don Zimmerman noted. “That happened on several occasions. … In the second half, we went to putting two long sticks on the wings, and we didn’t get a faceoff. So back to the drawing board. What we’re trying to find out is, who on our team is capable of stepping up and stopping the bleeding? That’s what had to happen tonight. They started running away with it, and we put in guys to see who could step up, and just stop the bleeding. That’s a work in progress. I think some guys tried, but I felt that other guys, they had an opportunity to come in and show us something, and it didn’t happen.”
*Zimmerman thought the defense strayed from its principles, pointedly noting that an unnamed player didn’t slide to cut off Blue Jays senior attackman Chris Boland because he didn’t want to leave his assignment uncovered. “I just felt like we were a little selfish,” Zimmerman said. “We were too worried about our man. Forget about your man. When we have to slide, nobody has a man. You have an area of responsibility, and you have to cover that area.”
Categories: Johns Hopkins, Postscript, UMBC
