Top-ranked Terps keep rolling toward Big Ten championship

Maryland remains undefeated with victory over Blue Jays

COLLEGE PARK — The Johns Hopkins men’s lacrosse team kept it respectable.

That was perhaps the silver lining for the Blue Jays, who had to sit and mull over the indignity of a 22-7 whipping — their most

lopsided setback in history — by archrival Maryland on April 23.

But in the end, the top-ranked Terps were their usual overwhelming selves in a 16-11 victory Thursday evening in a Big Ten Tournament

semifinal at Maryland Stadium.

Maryland (13-0), the lone undefeated team in NCAA Division I play and the top seed in the conference postseason, advanced to its fifth title game in seven years. It will meet either No. 2 seed Rutgers (12-2) or No. 3 seed Ohio State (10-4) — which met in the second game — on Saturday at 8 p.m.

The Terps leaned on their leading all-time points leader in fifth-year senior attackman Logan Wisnauskas. The Sykesville resident and Boys’ Latin graduated raised his career point total to 314 after amassing a game-high seven points on four goals and three assists.

Wisnauskas got plenty of help on the offensive side. Fellow starting attackmen Keegan Khan, a graduate student transfer from Villanova, and Eric Malever, a sophomore, each registered two-goal, two-assist performances, fifth-year senior midfielder

Anthony DeMaio found the net three times and senior midfielder Kyle Long (one goal, two assists) and sophomore midfielder Owen Murphy (two goals, one assist) enjoyed matching three-point efforts.

Junior goalkeeper Logan McNaney made a game-high 14 saves, senior long-stick midfielder John Geppert caused two turnovers and picked up two ground balls, and senior defenseman Brett Makar forced two turnovers and shut out senior attackman Joey Epstein, who finished with almost as many turnovers (two) as shots (three).

The last time these teams met, Maryland sprinted to an 8-1 lead just 2:05 into the second quarter and a 12-4 advantage by halftime. On Thursday, Johns Hopkins proved to be a tougher matchup.

Trailing 4-2 after the first quarter, the Blue Jays got goals from senior attackman Garrett Degnon and sophomore midfielder Johnathan Peshko within a 77-second span of the second quarter to tie the score at 4 with 13:11 left in the frame. The four goals matched what they had scored in three quarters against the Terps in last month’s showdown.

But Maryland closed out the second quarter with four unanswered goals and added a fifth from Long in transition just 45 seconds into the third. When junior attackman Jacob Angelus converted a pass from graduate student midfielder Connor DeSimone on an extra-man opportunity with 13:01 left, that snapped a 15:10 drought for Johns Hopkins.

The Terps proceeded to score five of six goals in the remainder of the quarter to take a 14-6 advantage into the fourth that pretty much cemented the outcome.

Degnon led the Blue Jays (7-9) with four goals, and Angelus added three of his own and one assist. Senior faceoff specialist Matt Narewski won 10-of-20 draws, picked up six ground balls, and scored once, and sophomore Tyler Dunn (Calvert Hall) won 5-of-6 and scooped up four loose balls.

But Johns Hopkins will miss the NCAA tournament for the second consecutive season.