The Game: Top-ranked Johns Hopkins (8-1) hits the road for a key battle at second-ranked Navy (10-1). The Blue Jays knocked off third-ranked Maryland, 14-10 in their last game last Saturday night, while the Midshipmen breezed past Holy Cross, 23-5 on Sunday.

A Look Back: Johns Hopkins posted a 14-2 record, ended the regular season ranked number one, earned the top seed in the NCAA Tournament and advanced to the NCAA Championship game last season. Navy posted a 6-7 record last season and missed the NCAA Tournament.

The Coaches: Dave Pietramala is in his fourth season as the head coach of the Blue Jays. The 2002 USILA National Coach of the Year, he sports an overall record of 65-26 (.714), including a 42-9 (.824) record at Johns Hopkins.

Pietramala spent three years as the head coach at Cornell (1998-2000) before returning to his alma mater prior to the 2001 season. He is the only person in the history of college lacrosse who has earned NCAA Division I National Player of the Year honors (1989) and NCAA Division I National Coach of the Year honors (2000 & 2002).

Richie Meade is just the seventh head coach in the history of Navy lacrosse and sports a 71-55 record since taking over in 1995. The 10 wins the Mids have this season are already the most for Navy since 1978, when the Midshipmen posted an 11-3 and advanced to the NCAA Quarterfinals.

Hopkins Lacrosse on the Radio: Johns Hopkins men's lacrosse games can be heard on WJFK-AM 1300 in Baltimore. The Johns Hopkins Lacrosse Game of the Week presented by Morgan Stanley begins with a pre-game show 15 minutes prior to faceoff and includes a 15-minute post-game show. All regular-season games (except the game against Albany) and NCAA Tournament games will be broadcast. Joe Miller joins the crew this season and will handle the play-by-play, while former JHU standout Larry Quinn will handle the color commentary.

Hopkins Lacrosse on Television: The Blue Jays are scheduled to hit the air waves six times this season. Games against Princeton, Syracuse, Maryland, Towson and Loyola will air on ABC2 in Baltimore, while the JHU-Navy game will be aired on College Sports Television. The Blue Jays' games against Princeton, Syracuse and Maryland will also be available on CSTV as they will pickup the feed from ABC2.

Hopkins Lacrosse on the Web: The official web site for Johns Hopkins athletics is located at www.HopkinsSports.com.

These Are The Facts: Johns Hopkins enters this week's game with an all-time record of 828-262-15 (.756) in 116 seasons of play. The Blue Jays own seven NCAA titles, 29 USILA titles and 6 ILA titles for a total of 42 national championships.

Captain My Captain: Senior attackman Conor Ford (Timonium, MD/St. Paul's), senior midfielder Kevin Boland (Jessup, MD/Gilman), senior LSM Corey Harned (Holbrook, NY/Sachem), senior defenseman Greg Raymond (Corning, NY/Corning East) and junior defenseman Chris Watson (Yorktown, NY/Yorktown) have been selected as team captains for Johns Hopkins this season.

All In the Family: For the fourth consecutive season, the Johns Hopkins coaching staff consists entirely of Johns Hopkins' graduates. Head coach Dave Pietramala and assistant coaches Seth Tierney (class of 1991), Bill Dwan (1991) and Pat Miller (2001) all earned their degree at JHU. Prior to the 2001 season when Pietramala, Tierney, Dwan and Howard Offit comprised the Blue Jay coaching staff, the last time the entire coaching staff was made up of JHU graduates was 1984, when the Blue Jays were coached by Don Zimmerman (1976), who was assisted by Jerry Pfeifer (1966), Joe Devlin (1978), Fred Smith (1950), Joe Cowan (1969), and Dennis Townsend (1966).

Tough: Johns Hopkins is once again playing the most difficult schedule in the nation (as rated by the Face-Off Yearbook/Under Armour Strength of Schedule Rankings). The Blue Jays play the three other teams that advanced to the Final Four last season (Syracuse, Maryland and Virginia), all four ACC schools (Virginia, Duke, North Carolina and Maryland), in-state rivals Towson, Loyola and Navy and Hofstra, Penn and Albany. Ten of those teams were ranked in the preseason top 20 and the other two (Penn and Albany) were receiving votes.

More Tough: This week's game against Navy will be the Blue Jays' fifth of the season (in 10 games) against teams ranked in the top five in the nation.

A Final Tough: After this week's game, the Blue Jays will have played all five teams currently ranked between second and sixth in the nation (Navy, Maryland, North Carolina, Princeton and Syracuse). Johns Hopkins is the only team in the nation that will play all five of these teams. Combined, those teams have a 40-10 record with eight of the 10 losses coming against another of the teams ranked in the top six.

Brother Act: The Blue Jays have six players on this year's team whose brother previously played for Hopkins. Senior LSM Corey Harned (Chris), junior attackman Peter LeSueur (Paul), sophomore middie Greg Peyser (Mike), sophomore attackman Joe Benson (Bobby), sophomore goalie Scott Smith (Todd) and sophomore defenseman Andrew DiConza (P.J.) all followed older brothers to Johns Hopkins.

Home Sweet Home: Johns Hopkins has won 25 straight games at Homewood Field and is 26-1 at home under head coach Dave Pietramala. The Blue Jays' only home loss under Pietramala was a 9-8 loss in four overtimes to Virginia during the 2001 season. The current 25-game home winning streak is the longest for Johns Hopkins since the Blue Jays won 31 straight home games from 1982-85.

April Reign: Since the beginning of the 1997 season the Blue Jays are 41-1 (.976) in games played in the month of April and have currently won 15 straight games in April. JHU's only loss during that time was a 10-9 loss at Maryland in 2001. The Blue Jays are 17-1 in the month of April under head coach Dave Pietramala.

More Home: Johns Hopkins outscored its seven opponents at Homewood Field last season, 126-41. Through six home games this season the Blue Jays have outscored their opponents, 82-44.

Anytime, Anywhere: Including this week's game at 2nd-ranked Navy, 33 of the last 34 games Johns Hopkins has played away from Homewood Field have been against teams ranked in the top 20.

Regular-Season Roll: Johns Hopkins is 33-3 (.917) in its last 36 regular season games. This is the best 36-game regular season run for Johns Hopkins since JHU won 34-of-36 regular season games covering a span from 1982-85.

More Rolls: Dating back to the 2002 season, Johns Hopkins is 31-4 (.886) in its last 35 games (including the NCAA playoffs). Hopkins' four losses during that time have come by a total of six goals.

One-Goal Turnarounds: JHU is 15-4 in one-goal games under head coach Dave Pietramala (since the start of the 2001 season) and the Blue Jays have won 3-of-4 one-goal games this season. From the final game of the 1994 season through the 2000 season Johns Hopkins was 10-9 in one-goal games.

Overtime Notes: Johns Hopkins dropped its only overtime game of the 2004 season thus far (9-8 at Virginia on March 27). The Blue Jays are 4-2 in overtime under head coach Dave Pietramala.

This Looks Familiar: The Blue Jays are currently 8-1 and have outscored the opposition, 109-64 (+45 goal differential). The Blue Jays' lone loss on the year is by one goal, on the road against the defending national champion (Virginia). At this same point last season, the Blue Jays were 8-1 and had outscored the opposition, 119-68 (+51). The lone loss was by one goal, on the road against the defending national champion (Syracuse). Last season, JHU got its season-ending run to the NCAA Championship game started with a 6-5 victory on the road. Two weeks ago, the Blue Jays picked up a, you guessed it, 6-5 victory on the road (Duke).

Younger Than You Think: Despite fielding a team that boasts starting experience at virtually every position, the Blue Jays are still not what you would consider a senior-laden team. In fact, of the players listed on the starting attack, the first two midfields, the starting defense, the top two goalies and the defensive midfield, only three are seniors.

Lucky Number Eight: Hopkins returns eight of its top 10 scorers from last season. Only Bobby Benson (41g, 12a) and Adam Doneger (28g, 7a) are gone from the Blue Jays' top 10 scorers from last season, when JHU led the nation in scoring offense (14.0 gpg.).

I'm Honored: Juniors Kyle Barrie and Kyle Harrison and senior Kevin Boland all garnered STX/USILA All-America honors last season. Barrie was the only sophomore to earn first team honors, while Harrison earned second team status and was the only sophomore among the five finalists for the Tewaaraton Award. Boland garnered third team honors for the second straight year.

Stars and Stripes: The Blue Jays had four current players who were members of the 2003 United States Under-19 World Championship Team. Sophomores Greg Peyser, Kyle Dowd and Matt Pinto and freshman Eric Zerrlaut all helped lead the red, white and blue to U-19 title.

Seven-for-Seven: Johns Hopkins was the only school in the nation to finish among the top four in the nation last season in each of the seven statistical categories tracked by the NCAA. The Blue Jays finished first in scoring offense (14.00 goals/game), extra-man offense (.471/40-of-85) and scoring margin (+7.06), second in winning percentage (.875/14-2) and man-down defense (.851/40-of-47 killed), third in scoring defense (6.94 goals/game) and fourth in faceoff winning percentage (.600/234-of-390).

Quick Starts: JHU outscored the opposition, 55-29 in the first quarter last season and 114-59 in the first half. Through nine games this season the Blue Jays hold a 62-32 scoring advantage in the first half. The margin stands at 32-16 in the first quarter and 30-16 in the second quarter.

A Pesky Bunch: Johns Hopkins, which currently ranks sixth nationally in scoring defense (7.11 goals/game), had its consecutive games streak of holding the opposition to less than 10 goals snapped at 18 when Maryland's Bill McGlone scored with 26 seconds remaining in last week's 14-10 win over the Terps. Prior to last week, the last team to score 10 goals against the Blue Jays was North Carolina (3-29-03)

More Pesky: The last team to score more than 10 goals against Johns Hopkins was Syracuse, which scored 15 in a 15-14 victory over the Blue Jays on March 15, 2003. The current streak of holding the opposition to 10 goals or less now stands at 21 games for the Blue Jays.

A Game of Runs: Johns Hopkins used a balanced scoring attack, strong play on faceoffs and a stingy defense to put together some game-turning scoring runs in 2003. The Blue Jays had 10 runs of 7-1 or better in 2003 and already have five this season. Below is a look at some of Hopkins' most impressive scoring runs of this season:

#5 Princeton 8-0 Turns 6-4 lead into 14-6 advantage

Albany 15-1 Turns 3-1 deficit into 16-4 lead

@ #11 Hofstra 5-0 Game-opening run

7-1 Extends 6-4 lead to 13-5

#3 Syracuse 13-1 Extends 3-2 first-quarter lead to 16-3 early in the fourth quarter

#5 North Carolina 4-1 Game-ending runs erases 8-6 third-quarter deficit

#3 Maryland 9-1 Game-opening run leads to victory in 100th meeting between JHU and Maryland

* Three of JHU's runs of 7-1 or better have come against teams ranked in the top five in the nation at the time of the game.

* Five different players scored during JHU's game-opening 9-1 run against Maryland.