No. 1 Maryland men’s lacrosse dominates Johns Hopkins, 22-7, completes perfect regular season

With No. 1 Maryland men’s lacrosse already off to another hot start at Johns Hopkins, the newly-minted program career points record holder made more history. Fifth-year attacker Logan Wisnauskas sent a pass over to graduate midfielder Roman Puglise, who ripped a shot into the top of the net to put the Terps up 3-0.

That assist was the 300th point of Wisnauskas’ accomplished career, making him the first Maryland player and 19th player in college lacrosse history to reach the 300-point threshold.

“He’s an outstanding player, but more than that he’s a great role model,” sophomore attacker Eric Malever, who had four assists Saturday, said of Wisnauskas. “He’s like the glue to our offense.”

The Terps, led by eight points from Wisnauskas, finished off their second consecutive undefeated regular season with its most dominant performance of 2022, a 22-7 victory over Johns Hopkins.

“Obviously we didn’t expect that,” Maryland head coach John Tillman said of his team’s beatdown of its biggest rival. “Once we got going, I think [the team] got a little more confidence as things went on.”

The Terps, who will enter the postseason with a 12-0 record, won their fourth-straight game over Johns Hopkins, the longest winning streak in “The Rivalry” since 2018. The Blue Jays fell to 6-8 in 2022.

“Tough day, [we] certainly wanted to start that game better,” Johns Hopkins head coach Peter Milliman said. “That was not the best version of us.”

After taking next week off, the Terps will be the top seed in the Big Ten tournament, which is set to begin May 5.

With a large swath of supporting fans behind them at a packed Homewood Field in Baltimore, Maryland jumped out to a blazing start.

Senior midfielder Kyle Long kicked off the scoring just 29 seconds into the game, using his speed to blow past his defender and beat Johns Hopkins graduate goalie Josh Kirson for the first goal of the game. Sophomore attacker Owen Murphy, who transferred from Hopkins following the 2020 season, doubled the Terps’ lead after senior long-stick midfielder John Geppert forced a turnover on the defensive end.

“I was a little worried he’d be emotional,” Tillman said of Murphy’s return to Homewood Field. “He shoots the ball very well and he got some good looks. I thought he did a really good job of changing up the shots and his release points.”

Junior midfielder Jack Brennan had a clean look at goal, but his shot was kicked away by Kirson. An opportunistic Keegan Khan was well-positioned, however, and the graduate attacker collected the rebound and deposited the ball in the open net to make it 4-0 Maryland three and a half minutes into the first quarter.

Johns Hopkins’ first goal came after a Maryland penalty gave them a man advantage. Graduate attacker Connor DeSimone scored an unassisted goal with 10:15 left in the quarter, but the Blue Jays were unable to capitalize and carry that momentum any further.

The last two goals of the first quarter belonged to Maryland. Fifth-year midfielder Anthony DeMaio made it 5-1 with 3:15 remaining, and sophomore midfielder Jack Koras subsequently extended Maryland’s lead to five heading into the second quarter of play.

After the brief intermission, Maryland continued their run with an extra-man goal. Graduate midfielder Jonathan Donville flipped a beautiful pass across the crease, right to Khan who scored. Khan then picked up a ground ball after the Terps forced a failed clearance, and dished to Murphy who fired a shot over his left shoulder and made it 8-1 Maryland with 12:55 remaining in the first half.

Johns Hopkins scored the game’s next two goals over the course of nearly five minutes. First, senior defenseman Owen McManus scored with 12:10 on the clock, and then sophomore midfielder Brendan Grimes struck with 7:34 left before halftime.

Maryland was far less methodical with its next string of consecutive goals. The Terps found the back of the net three times in the span of 10 seconds, with top-shelf rockets coming from DeMaio and Wisnauskas, and junior faceoff specialist Luke Wierman racing towards the net right after a faceoff win.

“They’re good at everything. They’re good at dodging one-on-one, they’re good at moving off-ball,” McManus said.

Senior attacker Joey Epstein ended the 3-0 Maryland run with a goal, but Wisnauskas answered with his second goal of the second quarter.

After one half of play, the Terps led, 12-4. They didn’t let their foot off the gas there.

Maryland scored two goals in the third quarter’s first two minutes. Wisnauskas secured his hat trick with 13:32 left in the quarter, and Murphy got his with 13:01 to go.

Then, Wisnauskas ripped a shot from almost 20 yards out and beat the Hopkins goalie, good for his fourth goal of the game to put the Terps up by 12 goals.

The last eight minutes of the third quarter were nothing short of complete annihilation by the Terps.

Keegan Khan added two more goals and tallies by Long, Murphy, Donville and Wisnauskas put Maryland up by an astounding 22-4 advantage heading into the fourth quarter.

“I think that our guys are just always in great spots,” Malever said. “Everyone’s always moving and cutting and so unselfish, so it doesn’t matter who scores.”

As they have been able to do multiple times this season, the Terps were able to cycle in a lot of players in the fourth quarter. Johns Hopkins kept much of its starting lineup in, and sophomore midfielder Johnathan Peshko ended the 11-0 Maryland run with 9:29 remaining.

Senior midfielder Garrett Degnon added a goal of his own, cutting the Terps’ lead to 16. The last goal of the game belonged to Johns Hopkins senior short-stick midfielder Alexander Mabbet.

The final score was 22-7. Saturday marked the largest margin of defeat in Johns Hopkins men’s lacrosse history, which was previously 13.

“[We’re] going to work as hard as [we] can to wash this taste out [of our mouths],” Milliman said. “But it has to sit for a little bit. It has to sting. Guys have to remember this.”

Three things to know

1. More history for Logan Wisnauskas. The Terps’ No. 1 put together an unbelievable five-goal, three-assist performance in the last regular season game of his career. He became the first Maryland player ever to reach the career 300-point threshold and also moved to third all-time in assists, passing Charles Wicker, who played from 1953-56.

“He is such a pro,” Tillman said of Wisnauskas. “You wouldn’t know whether he had four turnovers or four goals. He is very stoic and professional with what he does.”

2. Another great performance by Maryland’s defense. Logan McNaney had another fantastic showing, leaving the game after three quarters with 11 saves and only allowing four goals. The defense made Hopkins uncomfortable all game long, as the Blue Jays were never able to get into a rhythm on offense. Graduate goalie Drew Morris made some great saves as well, collecting seven in total.

“Once you make those first couple saves and you get a feel for the scenery of the field and everything you kind of get in a rhythm,” McNaney said. “I want to give my props to the defense, they did a good job giving me shots that I could see all day, and I want to give a special shoutout to Drew Morris. He’s one of the hardest workers we have on our team.”

3. Luke Wierman was dominant as usual. Luke Wierman won 17 faceoffs in yet another fantastic performance, and he also scored a goal. Wierman is putting together one of the best seasons Maryland has ever seen at the faceoff “X.” He now has the third-most faceoffs won in a single season by a Terp with 206, and he is well on pace to break the current record of 222, set by Curtis Holmes in 2011.