March 1, 2004

BALTIMORE, Md. -- The Johns Hopkins men's lacrosse team is ranked first in the inaugural 2004 GEICO-STX/USILA Division I Men's Lacrosse Coaches Poll, which was released Monday. The Blue Jays picked up seven first-place votes and 193 points to out-distance second-ranked Maryland, which picked up two first-place votes and 189 points. The Blue Jays will host fifth-ranked Princeton on Saturday afternoon at 1:00 pm. Nine of JHU's 12 opponents this season are ranked in the top 20 and the Blue Jays are scheduled to play every team that is ranked second through seventh this week.

Johns Hopkins, which has won 26 of its last 28 regular season games and 20 consecutive games at home, picked up a hard-fought, 10-9 win over Penn in its season-opener last Saturday at Homewood Field. The Blue Jays got three goals and three assists from senior attackman Conor Ford and four goals and one assist from junior attackman Kyle Barrie to fuel the victory.

The Blue Jays ended the 2002 and 2003 regular seasons ranked number one and have now been ranked first in the nation in 13 of the last 21 weekly polls (for reference, the Johns Hopkins Sports Information Office uses this poll as the official poll when listing the team's ranking). Prior to this run, the Blue Jays had been ranked number one for a total of one week from 1996-2001.

March 1, 2004  * ( ) - First place votes