BALTIMORE'S JOHNS HOPKINS--THE LACROSSE MECCA
Pre-NCAA Era Champions
(ILA) (6) – 1891, 1898, 1899, 1900, 1902, 1903
(USILL) (12) – 1906, 1907, 1908, 1909, 1911, 1913, 1915, 1918, 1919, 1922, 1923, 1924
(Consensus) (3) – 1932, 1933, 1934
(USILA) (14) – 1926, 1927, 1928, 1941, 1947, 1948, 1949, 1950, 1957, 1959, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970
NCAA Tournament Champions
(9) – 1974, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1984, 1985, 1987, 2005, 2007
NCAA Tournament Runner-Up
(9) – 1972, 1973, 1977, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1989, 2003, 2008
NCAA Tournament Final Fours
(29) – 1972, 1973, 1974, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1989, 1992, 1993, 1995, 1996, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2015
NCAA Tournament Quarterfinals
(40) – 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2015
NCAA Tournament Appearances
(44) – 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2016
Conference Tournament Champions
2015
The Johns Hopkins Blue Jays men's lacrosse team represents Johns Hopkins University in NCAA Division I college lacrosse. Starting in 2015, the Blue Jays, have represented the Big Ten Conference.
The team was founded in 1883 and is the school's most prominent sports team. The Blue Jays have won 44 national championships including 9 NCAA Division I titles (2007, 2005, 1987, 1985, 1984, 1980, 1979, 1978, 1974), 29 USILL/USILA titles, and 6 ILA titles.
Hopkins competes with Maryland in college lacrosse's most historic rivalry, the two teams having met more than 100 times, and both joining the Big Ten Conference in the 2014–2015 season. The Blue Jays also consider Princeton and Syracuse, their top competitors for the national title in the NCAA era, as significant rivals, and play Loyola in the cross-town "Charles Street Massacre." Other heated competitors include Virginia, and in-state opponents Towson, University of Maryland, Baltimore County and Navy.
In the past, the Johns Hopkins lacrosse teams have represented the United States in international competition. Johns Hopkins represented the United States in the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam and 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles where lacrosse was a demonstration sport, winning the tournament in 1932. Additionally, they won the 1974 World Lacrosse Championship in Melbourne, Australia where they represented the United States.
The Lacrosse Museum and National Hall of Fame, governed by US Lacrosse, is located on the Homewood campus and is adjacent to the home field for both the men's and women's lacrosse teams, Homewood Field.
Robert “Bob” Scott was a Hall of Fame lacrosse coach for Johns Hopkins from 1955 until 1974. He compiled a career record of 158 wins and 55 losses to go along with seven National Championships. He won the F. Morris Touchstone Award in being named the USILA National Coach of the Year in 1965, 1968 and 1972. Scott built a program that captured seven national championships including the 1974 NCAA title in his 20th and final year of coaching the Blue Jays. Scott was the school’s winningest coach until current coach Dave Pietramala passed him last season. After stepping down, Scott became the university’s athletic director until his retirement in 1995.
Henry "Chic" Ciccarone was the head coach from 1975 to 1983, during which time he amassed a 105–16 record. Ciccarone guided the Blue Jays to three consecutive national championships from 1978 to 1980. After defeating Maryland, 15–9, in the 1979 championship final to preserve a perfect 13–0 season, Ciccarone said, "I think you have to call this the greatest Johns Hopkins lacrosse team ever." Don Zimmerman played under Ciccarone in 1975 and 1976, and later served as his assistant coach. Zimmerman took over as Johns Hopkins head coach upon Ciccarone's retirement and led Hopkins to three national championships in his own right.
Current head coach Pietramala was widely regarded as one of the greatest defensemen in lacrosse history, and is a member of the U.S. Lacrosse Hall of Fame. He is the only person to win an NCAA national championship as both a player and coach, and the only person to be named both player and coach of the year. In 2001, he took the head coaching position at his alma mater, where he has revitalized the Hopkins program. In Pietramala’s nine years at the helm, the Blue Jays have a 106-30 record, nine NCAA Tournament appearances, six NCAA Final Four appearances, National Championship game appearances in 2003 and 2008, and the 2005 and 2007 National Championships.
Johns Hopkins career scoring leader Terry Riordan
In late 2012, the men's and women's lacrosse team facilities moved into the Cordish Lacrosse Center, located at the Charles Street (south) end of Homewood Field.
The Blue Jays were not selected for the 2013 NCAA tournament, the first such occurrence since 1971.
On May 17, 2013 President Ronald Daniels announced in an open letter to the Hopkins community that he was accepting the positive recommendation of a committee empanelled to explore seeking conference affiliation for the team.
On June 3, 2013 the University announced that the team would join a 'newly formulated' Big Ten as an affiliate member for lacrosse, effective in the 2014–2015 season. This conference will consist of Hopkins, Maryland, Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State and Rutgers. On May 2, 2015, the Blue Jays won the inaugural Big Ten men's lacrosse championship, defeating the Ohio State Buckeyes 13–6. (Wikipedia)
NOBODY DOES IT BETTER THAN THEY DO
According to its coach, the team that won Johns Hopkins' 35th national lacrosse title by mauling Maryland is the Blue Jays' best ever
By Joe Marshall, Sports Illustrated 6/4/79
The only thing more impressive than the play of Johns Hopkins in last Saturday's NCAA lacrosse championship was the acclaim that followed it. At the University of Maryland's Byrd Stadium the Blue Jays not only beat the Terrapins in the fine points of the game but outhustled and outmuscled them as well. When the 15-9 mauling was all over, the Maryland players gathered at midfield and paid tribute to their archrivals with a cheer, but the ultimate praise came from the Hopkins coach, Henry (Chic) Ciccarone. In an almost empty locker room an hour after the game, he summed up his team's effort by saying, "I think you have to call this the greatest Johns Hopkins lacrosse team ever."
The greatest Johns Hopkins lacrosse team ever? It might be easier to name the most beautiful Miss America. Hopkins is synonymous with lacrosse excellence. Saturday's win gave the Blue Jays their second straight national championship but not their second overall, nor their fifth, nor 10th, nor even 20th. No, this was their 35th national title. Nevertheless, Ciccarone had logic to back up his boast.
"It's much harder to win the national championship now than it was a few years ago," he said. "There are so many more good players coming out of organized programs and so many more schools actively recruiting them that the competition has gotten much tougher. Yet, against the toughest schedule possible, this team went undefeated."
Ciccarone methodically ticked off the highlights of Hopkins' 13-0 season. The Blue Jays beat second-ranked Maryland and fifth-ranked Virginia twice each, while also defeating third-ranked Navy, fourth-ranked Cornell, and North Carolina State and Army, which finished tied for No. 6. "Despite that schedule, the defense allowed fewer than seven goals a game," Ciccarone said. "That's unheard of in today's faster, higher-scoring lacrosse." Ciccarone didn't bother to add that the Hopkins offense more than doubled its opponents' goal output and that his team's average margin of victory was more than eight goals. In the context of this season, Saturday's six-goal shellacking of Maryland was a squeaker.
But when the season began 10 weeks ago, the '79 Blue Jays seemed destined to live in the shadow of last year's squad. That team won its last six games before upsetting Cornell for the national championship. It didn't seem possible the Blue Jays could be that good again, since three first-team All-Americas, including Mike O'Neill, probably the finest attackman ever to play at Hopkins, had graduated. "At the start of the year all we heard about was last year's team and the players we had lost," says Midfielder Dave Huntley, one of Hopkins' co-captains. "Most of us were members of that team and played big roles in its success, so we didn't resent the mention of it. But at the same time we were anxious to establish an identity for this year's team."
The trademark that the '79 Blue Jays quickly established was an attack so evenly balanced that it made its individual members almost anonymous. Going into the title game, Maryland's top scorer, Attackman Bob Boneillo, had 74 points, 28 more than any other Terp. By contrast, the Blue Jays' leading scorer had only 33 points. But there were six Hopkins players with at least 27 points, and the overall balance was best indicated by the fact that the man with 33, Attackman Jim Zaffuto, was a second-stringer. "What made this team so good was that we never had to rely on one individual to do the job for us," Ciccarone says. "Whenever one player fell down, someone else picked up the slack."
Ciccarone is a superstitious sort who can find dire portent in the happiest of circumstances. Over the last three years Maryland would have been undefeated—had it not had to play Johns Hopkins. Not counting this year's championship, the Blue Jays had won five straight from the Terrapins, including semifinal victories in the NCAA tournament the past two seasons. Included in the streak was a 13-12 Blue Jay victory earlier this season. That record of prolonged success against Maryland would seem to have been ample reason for optimism last week, but not for Ciccarone. He couldn't help thinking back to last season's NCAA championship. Going into that game, defending champ Cornell had beaten Hopkins five in a row. "I just hope that wasn't an omen," Ciccarone said apprehensively.
Maryland Coach Bud Beardmore pinned his hopes for an upset on a new offense; he had moved his two top scorers, attackmen Boneillo and John Lamon, from their normal positions behind the cage to new spots in front of it. In the earlier Maryland-Hopkins game, Blue Jay defensemen had bottled up Boneillo and Lamon behind the goal. While they struggled to get free with the ball, the other Terrapins stood around and watched. Of Maryland's 12 goals that day, nine were unassisted. Beardmore hoped to get his offense moving by putting his two chief scoring threats where they had more room to maneuver.
He also planned to take advantage of the aggressiveness of the nation's best defenseman, Hopkins junior Mark Greenberg. Greenberg had covered Boneillo in the earlier game but had frequently slid off him to double-team someone else. When Greenberg's tactics let Boneillo get free behind the cage, it did Maryland little good. In front of the cage Boneillo would be in position to take a pass and shoot.
At first, Beardmore's strategy appeared to be working. Maryland took a 4-3 lead and might have opened up a wider margin had not Blue Jay Goalie Mike Federico made several extraordinary saves. Before long, however, the vaunted Hopkins defense came to Federico's aid.
Incredibly, for the first 11½ minutes of the second quarter the Blue Jays did not permit Maryland, perhaps the country's most offense-minded team, to get off a shot. Freshman Defenseman Dave Black rarely allowed Lamon to touch the ball, and Greenberg hounded Boneillo. Normally a defenseman won't follow an attackman out past the restraining line, which is located 60 feet in front of the cage, but Greenberg, unwilling to let Boneillo get a running start at the goal, stuck with him even when the Terrapin star retreated almost to midfield. What's more, he occasionally stripped the ball from Boneillo out there. Boneillo did get three goals and an assist, but two of the goals came on broken plays and the four points were well below his average.
Meanwhile, Hopkins scored five second-quarter goals to take an 8-4 half-time lead. The tying and go-ahead scores came on unassisted goals by Huntley, who, along with freshman Attackman Jeff Cook, had three goals. The 5-0 second quarter effectively sealed the outcome, though Maryland did close the gap to 8-6 early in the third period. The Blue Jays quickly retaliated with three goals of their own, and the Terrapins did not get within four thereafter.
Maryland's frustrations grew as the afternoon wore on. The Terrapins had an extra-man advantage for the final 30 seconds of the first half and failed to get a shot off. They repeatedly committed turnovers, throwing bad passes and dropping good ones. Maryland's low moment came with 7:17 remaining when Terrapin Defenseman Randy Ratliff tried to underhand the ball to back-up Goalie Rich Shassian and inadvertently flipped it into the goal for Hopkins' and the game's final score.
Afterward, Ciccarone credited much of his team's success to the leadership of his seniors, taking the occasion to point out that he was losing two of his top four defensemen—but not Black or Greenberg—and five of his seven best midfielders. Still, no one could imagine an end to the Hopkins winning streak, which now stands at 20. One of the best attackmen in the nation, Brendan Schneck, will be a junior at Hopkins next year. He sat out this season after transferring from Navy, where he was a first-team All-America as a sophomore in 1978. As for the shortage in the midfield, it is well known that the Blue Jays had a banner year in recruiting, including in their haul perhaps the best midfielder from the Baltimore area. His name? Henry A. Ciccarone Jr.
Over in the Maryland dressing room, Beardmore was being asked to look into the future. A reporter cited the Terrapins' six straight losses to Hopkins and the Blue Jays' incoming talent before asking, "How are you ever going to beat Hopkins?" For a moment Beardmore looked as if he might answer, but that moment gradually grew into a prolonged silence. At length he shook his head slowly. Then, in a voice just above a whisper, he answered, "I don't know."
