Before Tuesday night's showdown with local rival Towson, Johns Hopkins coach Dave Pietramala had expressed reservations about an opponent that he thought deserved more attention than people were giving it.
As it turned out, Pietramala's concerns were justified.
In their season opener, the host Tigers got four points from sophomore attackman Ryan Drenner and 12 saves from redshirt junior goalkeeper Tyler White to upset the No. 6 Blue Jays, 7-5, before an announced 912 at Johnny Unitas Stadium.
Redshirt senior midfielder Andrew Hodgson and sophomore attackman Joe Seider (Hereford) each scored twice to help Towson (1-0) snap a 19-game losing streak against Johns Hopkins (1-1). The Tigers hadn't defeated the Blue Jays since April 17, 1996 when they left Homewood Field with a 13-12 win.
"It's awesome," said Towson coach Shawn Nadelen, who graduated from Johns Hopkins in 2001 after starting four years as a defenseman. "As I said to the guys in the locker room, we knew it was going to be — in our minds — a pretty even game with our personnel against their personnel. Rankings being what they may, we don't look at that stuff. We just look at who we are and what we're putting on the field."
Towson's best player on offense was Drenner (Westminster), who started in the midfield last season but switched in the offseason to his more familiar position on attack. Drenner's three assists tied a career high that he set in a 15-8 loss to the Blue Jays on Feb. 15, 2014.
Asked if he felt more comfortable at attack than midfield, Drenner said: "Yeah, I definitely do. That's where I like to be. But either way is fine with me, I guess."
Drenner, who gave Towson a 1-0 lead 2:55 into the game, took advantage of Johns Hopkins' decision to assign a short-stick defensive midfielder on him. Both of Drenner's second-quarter assists occurred after he dodged past his defender, drew a slide, and found Hodgson for a goal with 8:13 remaining and senior midfielder Greg Cuccinello for a score 38 seconds later.
Hodgson's goals were his first two in almost two years. He sat out last season after undergoing surgery for an unspecified injury. Seider played despite just returning to practice last Friday because of an undisclosed injury.
Towson also relied on a stingy defense that shut out the Blue Jays for 23:46 spanning the second and third quarters. And in the fourth quarter, the Tigers didn't surrender a goal to Johns Hopkins until freshman midfielder Joel Tinney bounced a shot into the top left corner with 1:09 left.
White made six saves in the third quarter. During one sequence, he stopped sophomore attackman Wilkins Dismuke from close range, watched junior attackman Ryan Brown (Calvert Hall) ring a shot off the left post, and stopped freshman midfielder Shack Stanwick (Boys' Latin) from the right wing.
"Luckily, I'm a big guy," the 6-foot-3, 230-pound White said. "So that helps me a lot. [Volunteer assistant coach Neil] Hutchinson, he's been working with me all week to kind of give me that Stanwick look. I was just very prepared. It was all about preparation. We were ready tonight."
Senior defenseman JoJo Ostrander limited Blue Jays senior attackman Wells Stanwick (Boys' Latin) to one goal and no assists, and junior defenseman Andrew Cordes allowed just two goals to Brown.
Brown (Calvert Hall) had scored seven goals in the team's 16-4 rout over UMBC on Saturday.
"I just really didn't pressure the ball that much because that's what he wants," Ostrander said of Wells Stanwick, who had one goal and five assists in last year's game between the schools. "He likes to push off and feed. So I just hung back and played normal defense."
Johns Hopkins, which had converted four of seven extra-man opportunities against the Retrievers, failed to score on all four chances against Towson.
Redshirt senior goalie Eric Schneider made 11 saves for the Blue Jays, who collected just as many ground balls (25) as the Tigers, failed to clear the ball (twice) as often as Towson did, and won one fewer faceoff.
But statistics are deceiving, Pietramala said.
"When you look at it statistically, it looks like it was an even game, but it wasn't," he said. "I thought we got outplayed. There is no excuse for it. We just have to do a better job. We had plenty of opportunities, and we had plenty of opportunities on the doorstep.
"Part of the game is cashing in on those opportunities. But at the end of the day, when things aren't working out, you've got to get stops. We didn't get all the stops we needed. So this was a team loss."