Johns Hopkins head coach Dave Pietramala thought he had the right game plan heading into Saturday’s matchup with No. 2 Syracuse.

‘If you would have told me that we would hold (Kenny) Nims and (Dan) Hardy to one goal apiece, I’d tell you that we’d probably win,’ Pietramala said.

But the problem for Johns Hopkins was the attempts weren’t all coming from one place. The Orange (4-1) outshot the then-No. 6 Blue Jays (3-2), 45-34, and received production from almost every end of its offense on the way to a 14-11 victory in the Carrier Dome in front of 9,197 fans.

‘We allowed them to generate more shots, we allowed them to get into a rhythm, we allowed them to feel comfortable,’ Pietramala said. ‘I don’t think we stepped to the plate defensively, not tonight.’

After being outshot in its previous two games, the Orange came out like a firing squad, registering 19 attempts in the first period alone, resulting in four goals. At one point, SU tallied 18 consecutive shots without a single Hopkins rebuttal.

Faced with a 3-1 deficit early in the first quarter, the Orange went on a six-goal swing that carried over into the second period to give it a four-goal advantage.

With eight minutes remaining in the period, Orange midfielder Jeff Gilbert released to the top of the offensive set and shot a one-timer from nearly 15 yards outside the cage to start the run. It was capped almost 10 minutes later, when SU midfielder Matt Abbott juked a Blue Jay defender to register the team’s seventh goal of the game.

‘We wanted to go hard to the cage and put good shots on the net, and we knew eventually they’d drop,’ Nims said.

The spurt represented a lapse in Pietramala’s game plan, which saw the coach attach three long-pole defenders on Syracuse’s core group of midfielders: Abbott, Hardy and Pat Perritt.

By placing emphasis on the midfielders, the coach’s hope was to cut the ball off between Syracuse’s midfielders and its attack. But instead, it had the opposite effect, allowing the Orange offense to spread out and work its offensive sets more methodically.

‘We knew they were poling up,’ Abbott said. ‘So we knew we had to dodge hard to the cage and find the open man, and if we executed our offense we would get good shots.’

The movement and fluid passing resulted in the first eight Orange goals all coming from a different player, with nine total players registering a goal.

‘They’re a prime example of a team that, one minute you think they’re going to shoot it and the next minute somebody’s up on the back door for a quicker finish,’ Hopkins goalie Michael Gvozden said. ‘They took a lot of shots, but they also moved the ball in times where I thought they were going to shoot, they’re slick.’

The ‘slickness’ in the Orange offense came to its peak in the second quarter. After Jovan Miller laid out Hopkins’ midfielder Peter Swerz, SU’s Kevin Drew picked up the loose ball and kicked it out to Nims, who one-touched the ball to a flagging Tim Desko as he finished the goal. It was a three-pass fast break in the matter of just 30 yards.

By avoiding predictability in its sets, the Orange also saw heavier production from unlikely sources. Sophomore midfielder Josh Amidon scored a career-high three goals, while Spencer Van Schaack, Tim Desko and Abbott combined for 5 goals.

‘We were capable of putting up 20 goals today,’ Nims said.

Despite a late Blue Jays rally, in which it scored five of the last six goals, Syracuse’s offensive production in the first half allowed it to breathe easy in the waning moments of the game.

After the final buzzer sounded, head coach John Desko applauded modestly as he saw his team rebound after sputtering offensively in its 1-1 stretch. The offense was stronger and controlled possessions against a Top-10 caliber defense.

‘It makes you feel good,’ Desko said. It was great to keep playing and shooting and running the offense – that’s a good thing for the ‘Cuse.’

ctorr@syr.edu

Published on March 16, 2009 at 12:00 pm