COLLEGE LACROSSE
Spencer keeps Greyhounds men cranking
Pat Spencer was his usual spectacular self, but he had plenty of help in the No. 2 Loyola Maryland men’s lacrosse team’s 18-12 dusting of No. 17 Johns Hopkins on Saturday at Homewood Field in Baltimore.
Spencer, the senior attackman who grew up in Davidsonville and graduated from Boys’ Latin, led all scorers with seven points on three goals and four assists. He was joined by freshman midfielder Chase Scanlan, who had four goals and two assists; sophomore attackman Kevin Lindley, who scored four times; and senior attackman Alex McGovern (St. Paul’s), who had two goals and two assists.
“We’re here for a reason,” Scanlan said as the Greyhounds (2-0) enjoyed their highest output against the Blue Jays in their 56-game series history and won for only the third time at Homewood Field. “A lot of guys can make plays. If we keep working as a team, the wins will come.”
Spencer and coach Charley Toomey have emphasized that Loyola is more than a one-man team, and that sentiment was on display Saturday. With starting sophomore attackman Aidan Olmstead limited by an unspecified injury, senior Bobby Austin (McDonogh) started with Spencer and Lindley.
But when the Blue Jays moved a defenseman to double-pole the midfield and a short-stick defensive midfielder down low, offensive coordinator Marc Van Arsdale countered by shifting McGovern from the second midfield to the attack. That forced the Blue Jays to go away from double-poling the midfield, which also got three goals from senior John Duffy.
“I won’t say that it puts pressure off of us, but when more people score, it’s harder to scout and harder for people to stop us, too,” Lindley said. “The more people that can produce, it’s just going to make us even more lethal.”
Spencer, however, did not disappoint. He now has six goals and 14 assists in four meetings with the Blue Jays and made a pair of behind-the-head, highlight-reel passes to Lindley for goals in the first and third quarters that drew cheers of admiration from an announced 4,630.
“It’s just something I’ve worked on a little bit, and Coach Van has been great with giving me the freedom to try it out and practice it,” said Spencer, who has eight goals and six assists this season. “It’s something I’ve worked on a little on my own. It’s just a feel thing.”
Senior goalkeeper Jacob Stover (McDonogh) made a game-high 12 saves for Loyola despite playing an illness, but Toomey was somewhat alarmed by the 12 goals the defense surrendered to Johns Hopkins (0-2). That was one reason why he did not bite when asked about the likelihood of moving to the top of the Inside Lacrosse media poll Monday after No. 1 Yale, the reigning national champion, lost to Villanova on Saturday.
“That’s the No. 1 team out there right now? No way, no way,” Toomey said. “I don’t think anybody is putting stock into the rankings. I know my team’s not. We’ve got to prepare for Rutgers [on Saturday]. That’s the next one up.”
Senior attackman Kyle Marr finished with five goals and one assist, and freshman attackman Joey Epstein contributed three goals and three assists for Johns Hopkins, which has dropped its first two games of the season for the first time since 1971. But a Blue Jays defense that has given up 35 goals in two games strayed away from its original plan, according to coach Dave Pietramala.
“I thought we made some really poor decisions on when to go to him and when not to go to him, and with those poor decisions comes a penalty,” he said. “I thought today we were team-defensively very poor. We missed first slides. We left [sophomore attackman] Brett Baskin out on an island against maybe their best midfielder. We left [senior short-stick defensive midfielder] Danny Jones out on an island against a converted attackman who’s dodging from behind the goal and we don’t support.”
The sophomore midfielder scored a game-high four goals to spark Johns Hopkins (2-0) to an upset of the Greyhounds for the second year in a row.
Junior attacker Maggie Schneidereith (Towson) added three goals and one assist, and sophomore attacker Aurora Cordingley scored three times to help offset a 4-1 hole less than eight minutes into the first half and an 8-for-26 performance on draw controls.
“There’s definitely going to be some games where our draw isn’t on, but I think our whole team is really good at making up for not getting the draws,” said Harrison, who controlled only two draws. “The defense was out of their minds, and the offense was hitting those shots that needed to be hit. So I think even though we didn’t do as great on the draws as we wanted to, it was really good to have both sides make up for that.”
Johns Hopkins closed out the first half with five consecutive goals to take a 10-7 lead into halftime. Loyola rallied to trim the deficit to one goal twice, but could not get the equalizer.
“We started off a little shaky, and we had to stick with our game plan,” Blue Jays coach Janine Tucker said. “So what we ended up doing was really sticking with our matchups as well as what we were trying to do offensively, being very unselfish. We set some kids up that we knew had some good matchups, and they got the job done for us.”
Senior attacker Hannah Powers and sophomore midfielder Elli Kluegel paced the Greyhounds (0-1) with three goals each, and senior midfielder Taylor VanThof finished with one goal, one assist and nine draw controls. But coach Jen Adams was irritated by the team’s 19 turnovers.
“We didn’t value the ball, we didn’t value possessions,” she said. “We threw it away a lot. The goalie only had six saves on the game and we had [24] shots. So we weren’t even making it a contest. Just a lot of sloppy play from us today, and I am very disappointed.”
6 | 3 | 7 | 2 | — | 18 | |
3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | — | 12 |
7 | 4 | — | 11 | |
10 | 3 | — | 13 |
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