May 24, 7:57 p.m. FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – To say Johns Hopkins has come a long way since the last time it played Duke would be a bit of an understatement.

On April 5, Hopkins was demolished by the Blue Devils by double digits, a loss that dropped the Blue Jays to 3-5 on the season, and a far cry for national title contention.

What a difference six weeks makes.

The fifth-seeded Blue Jays have reeled off eight wins since the nadir of its season, the latest and most dramatic of those coming Saturday – a 10-9 upset of those same Blue Devils in front of 48,224 at Gillette Stadium.

Hopkins will try to make it three national championships in four years Monday against third-seeded Syracuse (1 p.m., ESPN). The Orange beat second-seeded Virginia earlier in the day, 12-11, in double overtime. It’s the fourth time the two sides will play in a national title game and the first since 1989. Each has won twice.

On Saturday, the Blue Jays were able to keep enough possession to bog down Duke’s high-octane offense, which came into the game averaging 15.5 goals a game, tops in the nation. Instead, the Blue Devils were held to single-digits for the first time all year, and went more than 20 minutes without a goal in one stretch during the second and third quarters.

The Blue Devils had possession with time winding down, but were unable to get a good look to tie the game.

‘Obviously (against Duke), your offense is your best defense, and your faceoffs are your best defense,’ Hopkins head coach Dave Pietramala said. ‘I don’t think we had our best day at the X, but we won our share and kept possession of the ball.’

It’s the third straight year Duke (18-2) has lost to Johns Hopkins (11-5) in the final four – the Blue Jays beat the Blue Devils in the championship game in 2005 and 2007.

Even with the championship looming, the Blue Jays took time to revel in their upset.

‘I don’t think there’s a better feeling,’ said sophomore goalie Michael Gvozden, who hurled his stick into the air as time expired. ‘To upset these guys, such a tremendous team, in an atmosphere like this, it doesn’t get much better than that.’

Gvozden’s 17 saves played a huge role in limiting a Duke offense rife with weapons. The Blue Devils’ top attack line of Matt Danowski, Zack Greer and Max Quinzani came into the contest with a combined 162 goals on the season.

The trio managed five Saturday, but with the Duke midfield unable to get out in transition, the potency of the attack was blunted. Hopkins was able to scoop up enough groundballs (38 compared to Duke’s 24) and win enough faceoffs (13 of 22), to keep the ball in Duke’s end.

And there, Kevin Huntley’s four goals paced a Jays offense that wasn’t afraid to take its time.

‘We know how potent their offense is,’ Hopkins sophomore attack Steven Boyle said. ‘…And we just said on the offensive end we want to have good possession and take care of the ball because we knew they were going to pressure us in the attack.’

That offense scored a few goals early on too – enough to stake the Blue Jays to a 5-2 halftime lead and send a few shivers down the spines of the Blue Devils. Duke’s two tallies represented its lowest first-half output of the season.

‘I felt as if we were playing us almost,’ Quinzani, who scored twice, said. ‘I don’t know how many goals we got in 6-on-6 but it seemed as if broken plays, in transition is what I’m used to seeing everyday.’

Not that Duke was kept quiet the whole time. Trailing 5-2 in the third quarter, the Blue Devils scored three goals in a span of 45 seconds. In the fourth, they tallied pair of goals six seconds apart. The second of the two, a close-range strike by long-stick defender Nick O’Hara, knotted the contest at eight.

‘When they tied it, and then they tied it again, I wasn’t feeling too good,’ Pietramala said.

But, as it did all game, Hopkins kept its composure. Twenty-eight seconds later, Steven Boyle rifled a right-handed shot by Duke goalie Dan Loftus to give the Jays the lead for good.

Duke mounted one final push, scoring with 28 seconds left, but Hopkins bled off enough clock to secure the win and a date with the Orange in the national championship game.

‘I’m kind of humbled at what our guys were able to do today,’ Pietramala said. ‘We overcame a lot of odds, and that’s a great Duke team.’

jsclayto@syr.edu

Published on May 23, 2008 at 12:00 pm