One of the pillars of the Johns Hopkins foundation has been a reliance on a suffocating defense that has choked off opportunities for opposing offenses.
That pillar has begun to show cracks this season. The unit is tied for 44th in Division after surrendering 10.9 goals per game.
The No. 20 Blue Jays (3-5) are 1-4 when allowing at least 10 goals and 2-1 when holding opponents to less than 10 goals. In the five games in which the defense gave up 10 goals or more, the opposition averaged 37.2 shots. In the other three games, opponents averaged 29.0 attempts.
Coach Dave Pietramala said issues regarding communication and decision-making have led to the defensive breakdowns.
"The inconsistencies in those two areas have really plagued us," he said Wednesday morning. "In one instance, we'll slide to something that we probably shouldn't support, and we wind up creating offense [for the opponent]. In another instance, we wind up not supporting something that we should support. We've got to do a better job of applying the appropriate decision to the appropriate situation. Every situation is different. Sometimes what we'll do is we'll miss a slide and on the next play, we'll not want to make the same mistake – and obviously, you want your players to do that – but we'll slide and that won't be the appropriate decision for the appropriate situation."
The easy thing to do would be to point a finger at redshirt senior goalkeeper Eric Schneider, whose 10.71 goals-against average and .437 save percentage are considerably worse than the 8.84 goals-against average and .547 save percentage he posted as a first-year starter in 2014. But Pietramala defended his goalie.
"I would tell you that there is no player harder on himself than Eric, and Eric understands that his play needs to be more consistent," he said. "But I think that's more reflective of the whole defense. I don't think you can just look and say, 'This is just a goalie thing.' I think there are moments when our goalie has to play better. I know he does and so does he. But there are moments when our defense has to play better as well.
"So this is a collective thing. This is not a personnel or positional specific thing. It is each one kind of taking his turn and ultimately, I have to take some responsibility here because it falls on my shoulders – the head coach – to get the group to work as a cohesive unit and work collectively to get the job done. I think we all shoulder some blame here with myself at the head of the list."
The Blue Jays open the Big Ten portion of their schedule against Rutgers (4-6) on Saturday at 2 p.m. at Homewood Field. Pietramala said strengthening the defense has been a point of emphasis in practice this week.
"We've looked at it and have tried to simplify a couple of things this week to make those decisions more clear," he said. "My hope is that in doing that – and it's just some subtle little things – it might provide us with a little more confident in the decisions that we're making and make it a bit easier to come to the conclusion that I've got to do this or I've got to do that."