NCAA Rewind: Improving Hopkins Left with Abrupt Postseason Exits

Before USA Lacrosse Magazine looks ahead to what’s to come in 2025 — look out for our NCAA Way-Too-Early Top 25 rankings later this summer — our team of staff and contributors decided it was worth taking a last look at the 2024 college lacrosse season.

To do that, we’re taking a journey through 30 of the top teams in men’s and women’s lacrosse to see what went right, what went wrong and how we should feel about the season.

JOHNS HOPKINS

USA Lacrosse preseason/final ranking: No. 6/No. 5
2024 record: 11-5 (5-0 Big Ten)

What went right: A perfect run through the Big Ten regular season culminated with a 7-5 smothering of Maryland. Hopkins allowed just seven goals (and 21 shots on goal) in the fourth quarter and overtime of its five conference games. 

The attack tandem of Jacob Angelus (25 goals, 44 assists) and Garrett Degnon (47 G, 7 A) continued to complement each other. Matt Collison (23 G, 10 A) showed a penchant for big goals out of the midfield. Defenseman Scott Smith had a stellar senior year, and Beaudan Szuluk forced a team-high 23 turnovers. 

Cornell grad transfer Chayse Ierlan (.564 save percentage) provided a reliable presence in the cage, and an experienced short stick group (anchored by Brett Martin) helped make the Hopkins defense especially stingy.

What went wrong: There was some early frustration with one-goal games, as the Blue Jays fell in overtime at home to Denver and Navy and 14-13 on a neutral field against Syracuse. Hopkins was a subpar man-down team, allowing opponents to cash in 23 of 55 extra-man chances (41.8 percent) to tie for 59th out of 76 Division I teams. 

Manufacturing goals became harder as the year went on; after shooting 31.9 percent in their first 10 games, the Blue Jays were 28.9-percent shooters in six games after the start of April. 

Losses to Michigan in the Big Ten semifinals and Virginia in the NCAA quarterfinals left Hopkins with abrupt postseason exits.

Season highlight: Collison and Johnathan Peshko both scored four times in a 16-14 victory at Virginia on March 2, which was arguably Hopkins’ greatest statement. But given how the Blue Jays’ identity evolved over the course of the spring and what was at stake in their rivalry game against Maryland (an outright league title), that defensive masterpiece is one that will be remembered for some time at Homewood.

Verdict: Hopkins made it back to the quarterfinals for the second year in a row and came closer to reaching its first final four since 2015 but had the misfortune of running into Connor Shellenberger, who basically willed Virginia to a victory. The Blue Jays were an extremely competent team that knew who they were, lost five games by a combined seven goals and were better than their previous iteration — even if the postseason result was the same.