March 22, 2004

BALTIMORE, Md. -- The Johns Hopkins men's lacrosse team is ranked number one in this week's GEICO-STX/USILA Division I Men's Lacrosse Coaches Poll, which was released Monday. The Blue Jays picked up nine first-place votes and 199 points after improving to 5-0 with a 17-5 win over third-ranked Syracuse last Saturday. Maryland solidified its hold on the number two spot in the poll as the Terrapins grabbed the remaining first-place votes and 191 points.

Johns Hopkins ran its home winning streak to 23 games and regular-season winning streak to 13 games with the 17-5 win over the Orangemen. The Blue Jays got four goals and one assist from senior attackman Conor Ford, but it was the play of faceoff specialists that fueled the victory. Hopkins won 20-of-24 faceoffs in the game with junior midfielder Kyle Harrison winning 10-of-11. Harrison added a goal and sophomore Greg Peyser scored two goals and added two assists and won 6-of-8 facoeffs to lead the way. Sophomore Scott Smith made 10 saves in goal for the Blue Jays.

Johns Hopkins will play at 17th-ranked Virginia (2-4) on Saturday night at 7:30 pm. The Blue Jays and Cavaliers split two games last season with Hopkins taking an 8-7 victory during the regular season, while Virginia won the national championship with a 9-7 victory over Hopkins in the title game. Johns Hopkins has not won at Virginia since 1998 and UVa has won five of the last six and eight of the last 11 games between the two teams.

The Blue Jays ended the 2002 and 2003 regular seasons ranked number one and have now been ranked first in the nation in 16 of the last 24 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.

GEICO-STX/USILA Rankings

March 22, 2004  * ( ) - First place votes

Rank School 2004 Record Points

1. Johns Hopkins (9) 5-0 199

2. Maryland (1) 5-0 191

3. Syracuse 3-1 174

4. North Carolina 5-1 168

5. Princeton 3-1 156

6. Georgetown 4-1 145

7. Duke 4-2 131

8. Navy 5-1 124

9. Army 4-1 116

10. Rutgers 4-1 113

11. Loyola 2-2 90

12. Cornell 3-1 84

13. Hofstra 2-3 73

14. UMBC 2-2 65

15. Notre Dame 1-3 46

16. Denver 3-2 45

17. Virginia 2-4 37

18. Brown 4-0 30

19. Ohio State 3-2 28

20. Delaware 6-2 17

Others Receiving Votes (in order): Towson, Harvard, Yale, Air Force, Dartmouth, Villanova, Massachusetts, Penn State, Bucknell.

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