Men's Lacrosse @ Hopkins, 2PM Today on ESPNU
Men's lacrosse is in Baltimore to take on conference foe and Coach Conry's alma mater, Johns Hopkins (4-5). The game will air on ESPNU at 2 ET.
The boys are trying to bounce back after their most frustrating performance of the season, a 12-7 loss to Notre Dame last week in which the Irish shut down M's high-flying offense. ND allowed few good looks and Michigan seemed to miss the few opportunities they did get. Nevertheless, M goalie Shane Carr had an excellent game and is in the top 5 nationally in save percentage. And eventhough Rowlett was out, Justin Wietfeldt filled in admirably, winning 70% of the faceoffs; Michigan is currently 8th nationally in team F/O %, which is pretty huge. If they can get Zawada and the offense rolling again, this team has some pieces to make a bid for the tournament.
Michigan knocked off JHU last year for the first victory over the Blue Jays in program history. This is a game they have to have to keep their tournament hopes alive. The Jays are 4-5 with wins over Syracuse and Loyola but this isn't a vintage Hopkins team; they've dropped two in a row to archrival Navy and Delaware (who Michigan beat handily) and they are badly in need of a win. So, anything can happen. And the way the conference is shaping up, Michigan could possibly make the NCAAs with 3 regular season B1G wins and one in the conference tourney. And today is one of their best chances for a conference victory. GO GET 'EM AND GO BLUE!!
Fast start for Michigan but not a great second quarter. They looked all out of sorts for the last few minutes of the half and made some inopportune turnovers. They had leads of 3-1 and 4-2 but Hopkins has gone on a slow motion run to push it to 7-5 at halftime. Hopefully they can rally - GO BLUE!
Final, 15-12 Hopkins. A frustrating result but I think this team knows they can play better so hopefully they can shake it off and play sharp the rest of the season.
The past few seasons have started eerily similar for Michigan Lacrosse. Pick up a number of wins against some "smaller" programs, earn one really quality win, then collapse as the season rolls on into conference play. There still seems to be a lack of talent, especially in the midfield. Has the program also been under the same coach since its inception? It would be really nice if the school could elevate the program and make it a winner.
Part of that is how good the Big Ten is at lacrosse as a whole. It’s been difficult to get a real footing in a power lacrosse conference. Depending on which rankings you look at, the Big Ten currently features 3 of the top 12 teams. Johns Hopkins isn’t included in that number and they’re a blue blood. For a program like Michigan, that isn’t in a recruiting hotbed for lacrosse but has connections to the East Coast, it’s been rough sledding to get established. We play 5 conference games and if 3 are going to be against top 15ish programs in a given year, it can be hard to build yourself as a contender.
But no, this is our second coach in program history. John Paul took the team from club status to varsity status (which was a mistake in my opinion) and went 23-61 (2-24 in conference, 3 years of which were in the ECAC). This is year 5 of Kevin Conry, he’s 26-30 (4-17 in conference).
We’re now 7-3 on the year, we’ve gone 8-6 twice in program history as our only winning seasons outside of a 4-3 2020.
Did Archer graduate from there? Or did he flunk out?