Jays, Terps aim to sustain defensive effort

On Saturday, the Johns Hopkins men’s lacrosse team had done to Maryland what no other opponent in 2018 had done. The Blue Jays prevented the Terps from scoring 10 goals, but lost 8-7 in triple overtime.

After the game, senior goalkeeper Brock Turnbaugh did not mince words about what the defense’s expectations should be.

“This is how we should play every game,” the Phoenix resident and Hereford graduate said. “It’s been a while since we played good, solid team defense. As a goalie, I don’t expect anything less from our defense from here on out.

How Johns Hopkins and Maryland fare in Big Ten semifinals Ann Arbor, Mich., today TV: Big Ten Network the Big Ten tournament — which opens today with semifinals pitting the top-seeded Terps (11-2) against No. 4 seed Rutgers (9-5) and the No. 2 seed Blue Jays (9-4) against No. 3 seed Ohio State (8-6) — could depend on whether they can repeat their defensive outings from Saturday.

As suffocating as Johns Hopkins was, Maryland was slightly better, holding the Blue Jays to almost six goals below their season average.

Terps coach John Tillman is also looking for his defense to sustain its effort from Saturday.

“I’m hoping we can build off of that,” he said. “We’re going to need to going forward. We have to get back to being more like a Maryland defense and hopefully after the really tough schedule that we played, there’s some confidence with some of our guys knowing that they played a really tough schedule.”

Johns Hopkins blanketed the Terps’ top two playmakers. Junior long-stick midfielder Robert Kuhn contained senior midfielder Connor Kelly to one assist and 0-for-13 shooting, and junior defenseman Patrick Foley held sophomore attackman Jared Bernhardt to 0-for-11 shooting and one assist.

Coach Dave Pietramala was pleased by the defense’s preparation leading upto Saturday’s game, and said he wants to see the players replicate that effort again.

“The hope is that we can duplicate the level of preparation weputinto that gameand the level of selflessness and that we can make those quality decisions that we made as to when to support and when to not, to follow the game plan,” he said. “Clearly the ability is there. It’s just a lack of consistency.”