Dressed from head to toe in Hopkins blue, number 17 for the home-team drove hard to the cage and, with one swift move, sped past three defenders and fired home a goal. In return, the Homewood Field capacity crowd of 8,321 stood and roared its approval.
While that easily could've been a play from Saturday's Johns Hopkins-Virginia men's lacrosse game, it was merely a highlight from the five-and-six-year-old "pee-wee" lacrosse game held at halftime. Yes, pee-wee lacrosse. With half the kids smaller than their sticks, they looked more fit for prom night than a game of lacrosse in their knee-length mesh dresses.
But that's Baltimore for you, lacrosse capital of the World. To anyone who has ever attended a Hopkins lacrosse game, it quickly becomes apparent that lacrosse isn't just another "non-revenue" sport; the politically correct label applied to any sport that drains money from collegiate athletic departments.
In fact, men's lacrosse might be the only revenue sport at John's Hopkins. It might as well be the only sport period. With annual homecoming games, fans sporting baby blue T-shirts emblazoned with "The Nest" and enough intoxicated students to go toe-to-toe with any University football games, lacrosse is legit at Hopkins.
Virginia's Saturday play, however, was not. The Cavaliers looked sluggish and disjointed on offense, and if it wasn't for the heroic play of junior attackman Matt Ward (4 goals), the Blue Jays could have doubled, or even tripled, Virginia's score. And while branding themselves an offensive team, Virginia was anything but.
For the third time in seven games this season, the Cavaliers failed to score in the opening quarter while spotting Hopkins a three-goal lead heading into the second. Against Princeton March 12, Virginia used a four-goal run and a 15-minute scoring drought by the Tigers to pull away in the second quarter and win. Against Towson a week later, it used a seven-goal run to get the win. Although the Cavaliers outscored Hopkins 4-1 in the second, regaining momentum and tying the score, they were never able to break the tie and take the lead.
Gone was the offensive efficiency and role-playing mentality that had guided Virginia to six wins earlier in the season. Instead, Ward put the rest of the offense on his back and carried it three-fourths of the way to the win.
On 18 shots by Ben Rubeor, Matt Poskay and Kyle Dixon, Virginia received only three goals. For 59 minutes and 41 seconds, Dixon shot high and wide before finally notching his only goal of the game.
Then again, it is only March, and Hopkins has been ranked No. 1 the entire season. What counts happens in May, a month when the Blue Jays routinely under-perform. For the past three seasons, Hopkins has been the No. 1 seeded team in the NCAA tournament and over the past three seasons it has lost in the Final Four at the hands of three different teams.
That's the beauty of college lacrosse; with only 56 schools fielding Division I lacrosse teams, the elite teams such as Syracuse, Princeton, Virginia and Johns Hopkins traditionally play each other during the regular season, leading to heated rematches in the NCAA tournament. The nature of this system creates opportunities for redemption.
In 2003, No.-1 ranked Virginia traveled to Homewood for a regular season game that Hopkins won 8-7. Two months later the teams met once again in Baltimore. That game, though, was held down the street at M & T Bank Stadium in front of 40,000 people. It was also played for the National Championship. Virginia won 9-7, denying the Blue Jays their first national championship since 1987.
With the College Lacrosse Hall of Fame being only a few steps away from the entrance to Homewood Field, both the Blue Jays and Cavaliers truly were playing in the presence of legends Saturday. Unfortunately for the Cavaliers, they didn't play anything like legends against Hopkins... something they can hopefully change come May.
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