Johns Hopkins coach Dave Pietramala barely paused when asked if four midfielders who sat out all or part of this past season are eager to play again. "They all are," he said.
The Blue Jays endured a campaign in which they went 8-7 overall and 3-2 in the Big Ten without four of their top six midfielders. Two projected starters in Joel Tinney (NCAA violation) and Connor Reed (torn anterior cruciate ligament) were lost before the year even began and then two more midfielders in freshmen Drew Supinski and Alex Concannon suffered season-ending knee injuries within the first two months.
Reed, Supinski and Concannon are progressing through their rehabilitation plans so that they are apparently on schedule to report back to the team in the fall. But Pietramala said he doubted they would be permitted to participate in fall workouts.
"We want to be smart about this," Pietramala said. "The hope is those guys can have great summers rehabbing and getting ready and then come back. What we'll do is we'll hold them for the fall and then when winter workouts begin, that's when they can start to get rolling. That seems to be a good timetable for all of them, and they are all on schedule."
Tinney (28 goals and 10 assists in 2015), Reed (10 G, 16 A in 2015), Supinski (8 G, 4 A) and Concannon return to a midfield that includes a pair of 2016 starters in juniors John Crawley (17 G, 9 A) and Cody Radziewicz (13 G, 9 A), sophomores Patrick Fraser (9 G, 2 A) and Brinton Valis (3 G, 3 A), and junior Kieran Eissler (3 G, 4 A). That would seem like a crowded unit, but Pietramala is eager to replenish the group's depth.
"As we found out this year, you deal with injuries that you don't quite expect," he said. "So I wouldn't say we have an embarrassment of riches because you never know what's going to happen. I will say that what we will have is competition. The guys that have played this year will have to compete for those spots, and the guys that missed this year will have to come back and compete for those spots."