Just another trophy in the case.
After defeating Penn State in the semifinals of the Big Ten tournament on Thursday, Johns Hopkins (9-6) put a beatdown on Ohio State (11-6) Saturday night at Byrd Field in College Park, MD by a final score of 13-6 to claim the first ever Big Ten Tournament championship.
The Blue Jays got off to a quick start, outscoring the Buckeyes 4-0 in the first quarter courtesy of Kelton Black, Cody Radziewicz, Connor Reed and John Crawley.
The Scarlet and Gray woke up in the early portion of the second quarter, as senior David Planning scored at the 12:54 mark, followed by sophomore JT Blubaugh 1:32 later.
But just as the Buckeyes were getting back into the game, Hopkins would respond in the form of junior Holden Cattoni and senior Wells Stanwick 1:10 apart to make it a 6-2 game with 8:05 left in the half.
OSU sophomore John Kelly would tally his ninth goal of the season to make it a three goal deficit with 2:39 to go in the quarter.
Both teams went into the locker room at halftime, and the team wearing donning the white and colonial blue uniforms came out and dominated as they had from the outset of the game.
Hopkins scored five unanswered goals in the third quarter, capped off by a Stanwick special, Wells to Shack, for the freshman’s 20th goal of the season.
Among those five goals, history was made, as junior attackman Ryan Brown passed Jeff Cook and Terry Riordan in establishing a new single season goals record for the Hopkins program, his 53rd of the season.
Cattoni raced into the box from the left side of the field, dished to Brown in the middle and the Sykesville, MD, native sent home a bullet from 10 yards away stick-side past OSU reshirt-sophomore netminder Tom Carey.
The nation’s longest goal scoring streak runs to 31 games with that marker.
Carey made seven saves on the evening.
His counterpart in graduate student Eric Schneider was exceptional, making 12 stops, including some key saves in the early portion of the contest.
With the Blue Jays up 11-3 heading into the final quarter of play, it was mop-up duty from there.
Cattoni netted his hat trick goal 1:21 into the final frame, as Ryan Hunter would stop the bleeding with 6:57 left in the game.
Brown scored his second of the game for Hopkins with 3:29 remaining, and Jesse King and Carter Brown would score for Buckeyes 18 seconds apart to round out the scoring for the night.
The faceoff battle was as even as it could get, as senior Christopher May and sophomore Jake Withers outdueled the trio of senior Drew Kennedy, freshman Hunter Moreland and sophomore Kevin O’Toole 12-11 at the faceoff x.
Hopkins outshot Ohio State 38-37.
The Blue Jays converted on their only man-up opportunity, as they were disciplined on the flip side of the coin, not taking a single penalty.
With the win, Johns Hopkins will now advance to their 43rd NCAA Tournament appearance.
Ohio State will await its postseason fate at the hand of the NCAA Tournament selection committee.
