Blue Jays stay in Big Ten hunt with strong victory

No. 7 Johns Hopkins men’s lacrosse stayed in the hunt for the Big Ten regular-season title with a resounding 17-8 win over No. 18 Ohio State on Saturday before a crowd of nearly 2,000 at Homewood Field.

The Blue Jays (10-4, 3-1 Big Ten) outscored the Buckeyes, 7-0, in the third quarter to take control of the game.

Hopkins entered Saturday in a three-way tie for the conference lead with No. 4 Maryland (7-3, 2-1) and No. 5 Penn State (7-3, 2-1), which beat the Blue Jays, 12-11, in double overtime last week. Maryland visits No. 9 Rutgers on Sunday night, while Penn State plays at No. 15 Michigan.

The Blue Jays, who host the Terps next week, might be peaking at the right time — or at least are getting close.

“The first half of the game was sloppy, a lot of turnovers,” said Blue Jays attackman Garrett Degnon, who finished with four goals and an assist. “There was no pressure, just turnovers we forced on ourselves. We said at halftime that if we cleaned up our game, more goals would come.”

Midfielders Matt Collison and Russell

Melendez each had three goals for Hopkins while attackman Jacob Angelus had three assists. Attackman Jack Myers had three goals to lead Ohio State (5-7, 1-3).

“That team we lost to last week [Penn State] was a really good team, the last play just didn’t go our way,” Degnon said. “Obviously, losing stinks, but we still had confidence in what we could do. I feel like we have been playing well for the last six or seven weeks, but we haven’t put together a full 60 minutes yet. We definitely played well today, but we can get better.”

According to Angelus, the Blue Jays don’t have a lot of stars, but the players are starting to get comfortable with third-year coach Peter Milliman’s system.

“We don’t have the most talented, the most skilled or highly recruited players, but