During the Denver men’s lacrosse home opener of 2016, the No. 1 ranked Pioneers topped the No. 5 ranked Johns Hopkins University Blue Jays 14-10 at Peter Barton Lacrosse Stadium on Jan. 30.
The reigning National Champions took control just past the first minute of play when senior attacker Jack Bobzien (Littleton, Colorado) scored. From that point on, Denver surged and tallied seven more goals in the opening frame. Denver outshot Johns Hopkins 14-2 and managed to hold them off from marking the scoreboard until the final seconds when the Blue Jays received their first goal of the match.
Denver’s offense was dominated by returning United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association (USILA) First Team All American attack Connor Cannizzaro (Cazenovia, New York) and by freshman attack Nate Marano (Tustin, California). Both netted two apiece during the first quarter, Marano would continue to finish the game with four.
Additional returning USILA First Team All-American face-off specialist Trevor Baptiste (Denville, New Jersey) aided Denver’s possession as he was 10/10 for face-off wins in the first quarter. By the end of the match “Beast Baptiste” won 19 of 23 face-offs. Freshman face-off specialist Ryan Harnisch (Huntington Beach, California) saw action in the fourth quarter as well.
“We were thrilled with the start, but the second quarter they [JHU] adjusted; they have a great coaching staff. So we had to adjust to their adjustments, it made a fun chess match out there today,” said Head Coach Bill Tierney.
Momentum transitioned during the second quarter, as Hopkins restrained Denver’s offense and generated a few chances on their own. Hopkins’ second quarter rally resulted in outshooting Denver 12-10 and netting five over Denver’s three goals.
“You can’t take your pedal off, you just can’t and that’s one of the lessons that we learned from this scrimmage,” said Tierney.
The second half of the match slowed from both sides as play evened out and each team ran some of their lower-string lines.
Freshman Alex Ready (Lancaster, Pennsylvania) played the majority of time in net for the Pios before the third quarter when he was replaced by senior Joey Gigantiello (Shamong, New Jersey). The final two quarters were split between Gigantiello and junior Hunter Krout (Naples, Florida).
“I thought Alex [Ready] did a good job. It’s hard on a goalie when you don’t see a lot of shots early. If we get that kind of game out of him each and every game we’ll be fine,” said Tierney.
The sold-out scrimmage marked the 24th time in stadium history that every seat was occupied.
“One part of the old school coach in me wants to say, ‘Oh this is silly, this is a scrimmage, why are you here?’ And another part of me says ‘It’s 60 degrees, we might not have a nicer day here all spring, if they want to be here and they want to follow our guys, good for them. It was great to see the fans so into the game, again, especially for an exhibition. I thought that was really cool,” said Tierney.
Denver has a two-week break before traveling to Colorado Springs to face the Air Force Academy at 1 p.m. on Feb. 13, kick-starting their 2016 campaign.
