2024 NCAA Lacrosse Preview: No. 6 Johns Hopkins (Men)

The 2024 Division I men's college lacrosse season kicks off February 2. As is our annual tradition, we’re featuring every team ranked in the USA Lacrosse Preseason Top 20 in the lead up to opening night. Check back to USALaxMagazine.com each weekday this month for new previews, scouting reports and rival analysis.

NO. 6 JOHNS HOPKINS

2023 Record: 12-6 (4-1 Big Ten) 
Final Ranking (2023): 5 
Head Coach: Peter Milliman (4th year) 
Assistants: Jamison Koesterer (defense), John Crawley (offense), Brian Kelly

It felt like spring Thursday afternoon at Johns Hopkins. The misty rain and unseasonably mild air had reduced to small mounds the snowbanks that piled up around campus last week.

With better weather and a new playing surface to break in before its Feb. 3 opener against Denver, the Johns Hopkins men’s lacrosse team will scrimmage UMBC today at Homewood Field instead of an indoor athletics complex in Springfield, Va., as previously scheduled.

Which meant Thursday the Blue Jays would prepare for the Retrievers the same as they will for the Pioneers — with a walkthrough and team dinner.

Walkthroughs are more like pre-game vibe sessions. They’re short practices with loud music, high-volume stick work and few stoppages. Rapidly the players progressed through warmups, man-up vs. man-down, rides, clears and substitution patterns.

“Coaches, anything else?” head coach Peter Milliman asked aloud to assistants Jamison Koesterer, John Crawley and Brian Kelly about an hour into the practice. “It’s a short list today.”

They gestured no.

“Alright,” Milliman proclaimed. “Fun!”

Ah yes, indeed it’s Fun time. With a capital F.

Half the team took turns tracking high flies launched by senior long-stick midfielder Patrick Deans from the top row of the South bleachers. The others emptied two buckets of tennis balls to play pickup-style 3v3 with field players jumping in goal and new trios entering after each score. Goalie Chayse Ierlan heaved 60-yard shots into a net on the opposite side of the field.

There’s a fun, winning-time vibe about the Blue Jays right now. After consecutive losing seasons under Milliman, who replaced Johns Hopkins legend Dave Pietramala at the onset of the pandemic in 2020, they went 12-6 and advanced to the NCAA quarterfinals last year.

Transfers Alex Mazzone (Georgetown) and Russell Melendez (Marquette) jolted the defense and offense, respectively, and Crawley crafted an offense that brought out the best in table-setter Jacob Angelus (17 goals, 44 assists) and big lefty finisher Garrett Degnon (team-high 41 goals).

Mazzone moved on, but darn near everyone else returns. That includes Degnon, who received an NCAA eligibility waiver for a sixth year. This 60-man roster is deep and dangerous at all levels. And there’s a palpable, powerful sense of belief in the locker room.

“Comparing this group to Hopkins teams I’ve been a part of in the past, it’s more about how it feels,” said Koesterer, the defensive coordinator who won two NCAA championships as a player at Johns Hopkins and was a volunteer assistant for a pair of quarterfinal runs in 2011 and 2012. He had subsequent stops at Ohio State and UMBC before Milliman brought him home three years ago. “It feels like we have the right ingredients. When I hear the conversations and the energy that reverberates around here, that’s what gets me excited.”

TOP RETURNERS

Brett Martin, SSDM, Sr. (15 CT, 19 GB) 
Matt Collison, M, So. (26G, 9A) 
Scott V. Smith, D, Sr. (23 CT, 32 GB)

Martin is a second-team preseason All-American. Collins and Smith were third-team selections. Melendez and Ierlan earned honorable mentions. It says something about Milliman’s insistence that Hopkins have the best role players in the country that neither Angelus nor Degnon are listed above. Melendez (37 goals, 16 assists) was a revelation last year, but so was Collison, the 6-foot-4, 225-pound midfielder whose 26-goal campaign made him just the third Hopkins freshman in the last 15 years to earn All-American honors. Inside Lacrosse ranked the Blue Jays’ midfield unit No. 1 in Division I. That’s to say nothing of their cadre of short sticks led by Martin and that Smith has emerged as their best cover defenseman since Tucker Durkin. Smith’s NCAA quarterfinal performance — limiting Tewaaraton finalist Pat Kavanagh to just one assist in a 12-9 loss to Notre Dame — has some coaches talking about him as a dark horse candidate for the Schmeisser Award.

KEY ADDITIONS

Chayse Ierlan, G, Gr. (Cornell) 
Brandon Aviles, SSDM, Gr. (Syracuse) 
Hunter Chauvette, A, Fr. (Lawrenceville)

When it comes to the transfer portal, Milliman prefers quality over quantity. Hopkins had an obvious void at goalie after Tim Marcille opted not to use his fifth year of eligibility and an obvious target in Ierlan, whom Milliman recruited to Cornell when he was the head coach there. “I was informed that his name was in the portal and I texted him 10 seconds after that,” Milliman said. “We were both excited about it for different reasons.”

Ierlan started 50 games at Cornell from 2019-2023, backstopping the Big Red all the way to the NCAA championship game in 2022 and earning honorable mention All-American honors in 2023. His vocal and outgoing nature — “He’s comfortable with a mic,” Milliman quipped. “I think he’s under the impression that there’s always one.” — as well as his previous relationship with the head coach have allowed him to slot in seamlessly at Homewood.

NOTABLE DEPARTURES

Graduations: Alex Mazzone, LSM; Tim Marcille, G; Matt Narewski, FO

X-FACTOR

Brooks English, M, So.

Crawley was as hesitant to identify a breakout player as he was to take credit for Hopkins’ offensive turnaround last year. But the former two-time Blue Jays captain and second-year offensive coordinator whose coaching star rose in the same position at Lehigh did mention English as a player to watch.

A two-way midfielder in the same mold of his brothers, Sam, a graduate year player at Syracuse who made the Tewaaraton watch list at Princeton, and Ty, a junior at North Carolina, English scored three goals in Johns Hopkins’ NCAA tournament first-round blowout of Bryant. He’s the kind of player who could thrive in Crawley’s basketball-inspired offense that prioritizes motion over hero ball.

“English has taken a step from his freshman or sophomore year,” Crawley said. “He looks more comfortable. He looks more confident. He's always had a pretty good knack for playing with and without the ball. His style of play has separated him from the pack a little bit.”

THE NARRATIVE

Hopkins is back. That’s the narrative.

Syracuse has similarly high expectations. And isn’t college lacrosse better off when these two colossuses ranked in the top 10 of the USA Lacrosse Preseason Top 20 are vying to add to their collection of 20 combined NCAA championship trophies?

Not everyone feels that way, Milliman cautioned.

“Everybody’s got an opinion when you’re Hopkins. Most people have two,” he said. “There’s plenty of people out there who want to see us go 0-13.”

ENEMY LINES 

“Every year, you’re going to find out a little more about them. I know he brought in a lot of transfers and he’s bringing 15, 20 guys a year. I don’t know what they’re going to look like. Based off last year, they have a lot of those guys back and I know they had a lot of talent last year. They’re really talented and they had another solid year last year. I think Crawley is the difference maker there. He’s done a phenomenal job with that offense and has the guys believing and playing together.”

BEYOND THE BASICS 
POWERED BY LACROSSE REFERENCE

Johns Hopkins enters the 2024 season with a wealth of experience, with a median of 50 career games among their rotation players and a staggering 96% of offensive production returning from last year. This level of continuity, especially with offensive standouts like Jacob Angelus and Russell Melendez, sets the stage for the Blue Jays to maintain their offensive firepower, which ranked in the 83rd percentile nationally. Add in Chayse Ierlan from the portal (er Cornell), and you’ve got a team that should be able to pick up where it left off a year ago.

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