Records Fall in Johns Hopkins' 22-8 Rout of Bryant in Round 2 of NCAA Tournament

BALTIMORE — Johns Hopkins started moving the ball at a high level in the second quarter of Sunday’s game against Bryant. It wasn’t long before it was clear the sixth-seeded Blue Jays would be moving on to the NCAA tournament quarterfinals for the first time since 2018.

Russell Melendez had five goals and four assists to set a Hopkins postseason record for points in a game, and Jacob Angelus had two goals and five assists in a 22-8 rout before 1,458 at Homewood Field.

The Blue Jays (12-5) collected 16 assists, including 11 during a 15-0 run during which they blew the game open.

“I thought it was really a sign of progress through the day because I thought that first quarter, I don’t think it was going great for us,” coach Peter Milliman said. “We were down 3-2, it wasn’t catastrophic, but you could see the sense of selflessness when we started moving the ball differently.”

Hopkins will meet third-seeded Notre Dame (11-2) next Sunday in Annapolis, Md.

Aidan Goltz had three goals for the America East champion Bulldogs (12-5), who had more turnovers (13) than shots (11) in the middle two quarters.

“You can kind of live by the sword and die by the sword, and we kind of fell on it a little bit in the second quarter,” Bryant coach Brad Ross said. “We knew we were going to have to run and play between the boxes if we were going to be able to score on them. … It was part of our plan, to push the ball. Unfortunately, when those things don’t go your way, it can get ugly quick, and unfortunately, it did.”

Early on, Bryant did much of what it needed to stick around. It won five of seven faceoffs in the first quarter, didn’t endure glaring turnover problems and got solid play from goalie Teagan Alexander, who made half of his 12 stops in the first 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, Hopkins hung around thanks to freshman Brooks English, who scored three times to double his season output.

“He scored the first three goals in the game,” Milliman said. “For a freshman playing in his first NCAA tournament game, he was as poised as anybody.”

The Blue Jays then proceeded to make some edits to their NCAA tournament record book. The 22 goals tied a school record for the largest output in the postseason, and it was the first time Hopkins scored 20 goals in any game since a 22-6 rout of Marist in the first round of the 2005 tournament.

The run was truly sparked when faceoff man Matt Narewski scored his first goal of the season to open a second quarter Hopkins would win 9-0. That matched the Blue Jays’ record for goals in the quarter of an NCAA tournament game, which was previously set in the fourth quarter of a 2003 semifinal defeat of Syracuse.

Melendez got going in serendipitous fashion when Johnathan Peshko’s carom off the pipe careened right into his stick. A 10-yard dart later, Hopkins was up 7-3 with 5:01 left in the second quarter.

It began a stretch in which the junior Marquette transfer played a part in eight of 11 goals. When he tacked on his fifth goal late in the third quarter, he surpassed the old Hopkins record of eight points in an NCAA tournament game, accomplished six times (most recently by Dan Denihan against Notre Dame in the 2000 quarterfinals).

“He did some creating and some finishing, and did some feeding,” Ross said. “Great players, no matter how much you prepare for them, they’re going to be able to find a way. He did a really good job in transition unsettled.”

The offensive surge made for a low-stress second half for the Hopkins defense. The Blue Jays held Kevin Groeninger, a first team all-America East attackman and the only player in Bryant’s Division I history to post 30 goals and 30 assists in a season, without a point.

Hopkins goalie Tim Marcille made seven saves in three quarters of work.

“It just took a second to get our feet underneath us, and we started realizing that they’re going to go to the net, so we might as well be ready to slide,” Marcille said. “There were a couple times in the first and second quarters that we stayed on the doubles on those low posts and chased them away. Once that happened, the ball started hitting the ground a bit more, and we started emphasizing that we needed to pick those up because we gave a couple rebound goals to start.”

It was an imposing test for the Bulldogs, who did not play an eventual NCAA tournament team in the regular season. But Bryant did win the America East in its debut season in the league and advanced to the NCAA tournament for the sixth time in the last 11 seasons.

By halftime, it was clear the Bulldogs’ second Division I postseason victory would have to wait. Hopkins, a team accustomed to tight late-game situations, rendered the second half academic after taking a 12-3 lead into the break.

An hour later, Hopkins had its first postseason victory in five years, a far better way to close out its home schedule than the Big Ten semifinal loss it experienced 10 days earlier against Maryland. And it rendered its early deficit a distant memory, hardly stunning for a team that has gone on to win six times when it trailed after the fifth goal this season.

“I don’t think it’s lost [on anyone about] any of the challenges we’ve faced this year and what that’s done to build this team,” Milliman said. “We’ve had some really tough days. We’ve had some highs and some lows, and some of that is going up and down in games. I think that teaches the guys a lot, that there’s a battle-tested quality there where maybe that poise starts to come to through.”