As Johns Hopkins took the practice field this fall, head coach Dave Pietramala peppered his players with questions he wasn’t sure he had the answers to.

Could talented freshman and sophomore classes overcome the lack of upperclass leadership on a team without a single senior starter at midfield or attack? Could Johns Hopkins restore itself to the elite after falling behind Syracuse and Princeton in national prominence during the 1990s? And could it withstand an early-season schedule that featured those teams with a dangerous Hofstra squad sandwiched in between?

They answered resoundingly, ‘Yes, yes and we’ll try.’

A possible journalist in his past life, Pietramala hasn’t stopped questioning his young team. Not even after it knocked off two older and deeper No. 1 squads in the Tigers and Orangemen and narrowly escaped Hofstra, 9-8, to stake claim to what has proven to be a dangerous No. 1 ranking.

And the questions continue. There’s so much inquiry, Pietramala is asking himself questions and providing the corresponding answers. Unprompted. Call it the dream interview.

‘Does it surprise me we’re doing this well?’ he asked over the phone yesterday. ‘No, I think we have the talent. You just hope these young guys grow up fast. What we have done is grow up faster than even we expected.’

Pietramala continues: ‘Do I worry about it? That’s going to be your next question, right?’

‘Yeah,’ he said, answering his own question before offering another. ‘Will it happen? It better not. My job is to make sure it doesn’t happen. I’m not concerned with the ranking. We’re not concerned with the ranking. We’re concerned with getting better. We’re not good enough to worry about the ranking.’

Coaches around the league tend to agree, and three separately noted that Hopkins’ three opening-season wins could easily have gone the other way. Syracuse led nearly the entire game at JHU before giving up the game’s last three goals. Hopkins also squeaked by Hofstra. And it beat the Tigers by just three in its home opener.

Pietramala readily acknowledges his team could just as easily be 0-3. But in a year when six teams receive automatic qualifiers for the 12-team NCAA Tournament, the early season wins against quality competition become that much more important. Especially for teams vying for an at-large bid, like Hopkins and the rest of the national elite, save Princeton, a member of the Ivy League.

So don’t ask Pietramala if his personal three-game winning streak against the Orangemen — two at Hopkins, one at Cornell — is significant (‘Every win is a big win,’ he says).

‘I only put stock in it if it’s done in late May,’ Loyola coach Bill Dirrigl said. ‘Right now, and I think (Pietramala) will tell you this, in that game, (goalie Nick Murtha) played extremely well. They’ll probably play again. And they’d like to win the next game instead of the last game they played. I don’t put too much stock in that point, but the bigger point is that Dave is a great coach and Hopkins is a good team.’

That good team starts with a young nucleus whose leading scorer, sophomore Conor Ford, has just 10 points. Classmate Kevin Boland (eight points), and juniors Adam Doneger and Bobby Benson (five apiece) follow.

Pietramala came back to his alma mater two years ago after turning around once-dormant Cornell. The former All-American wanted to instill the sense of pride he felt when wearing those fashion-faux-pas light blue jerseys. It worked immediately as his team earned an NCAA Tournament bye last season before losing to Notre Dame in the quarterfinals.

The Blue Jays’ wins this year have been more of the lunch-pail variety, with solid defense and a steady senior goaltender in Nick Murtha (7.00 goals-against average, .650 save percentage).

But with primarily youth and inexperience running rampant in Baltimore, Pietramala will take the success anyway he can get it, especially when Hopkins has to travel to Virginia this weekend to face a team equally young and hot.

‘You understand you are young and you are going to make mistakes longer than you like,’ Pietramala said. ‘But I don’t feel we’ve taken any lumps. Could we turn around right now and lose a bunch of games? I hope that won’t happen. But we need to take it slowly. You have to do that with a team this young.’

The youth movement

Johns Hopkins isn’t the only team this season drinking from the proverbial fountain of youth. Take a look at the current top five.

No. 1 Johns Hopkins (young and dangerous), No. 2 Syracuse (always there), No. 3 Virginia (young and dangerous), No. 4 Loyola (‘fairly young,’ Dirrigl said), and No. 5 Maryland (new goaltender).

Virginia especially has benefited from its youth movement. Sophomore goaltender Tillman Johnson started every game last season and — with exception to a poor game against Syracuse in horrible weather — has improved as the Cavaliers have built a 4-1 record. He was named ACC Player of the Week last week, as Virginia downed two of last season’s Final Four teams in Notre Dame and Towson.

Freshman Johnny Christmas, a player Syracuse coveted, ranks fourth on the Cavaliers in scoring with 13 points. Twice stuffed in the first half against the Tigers, he scored two big goals in the fourth quarter to secure the win.

‘That’s why we’re winning, we’re playing well at the end of games,’ UVa coach Dom Starsia said. ‘We play our best lacrosse in the fourth quarter. The kids are amazingly resilient in what we’re asking them to do. They have their freshmen foibles, but they’re resilient. They bounce back.’

Loyola (4-0) starts exactly zero midfielders who played significant minutes last year, its starting goalie is green as well and sophomore Stephan Brundage is tied for the scoring lead with 17 points. Similarly, at North Carolina, freshman Bryant Will leads a surprising 5-0 Tar Heel team with 15 points.

Chalk it up to the growth of lacrosse across the country. Or call it a special freshman class. But the simple facts remain: Stocked Princeton is 1-2, highly touted and older Towson is 2-2 and younger teams have grabbed the early — and it is early — advantage.

‘It’s really a combination,’ said North Carolina coach John Haus, whose team has won three one-goal games this season. ‘But the big thing is this is just an extraordinary freshman class. I can’t even imagine what these guys will be like when they’re seniors.’

Neither can we.

The Ivy League?

That’s right, the most dominant league in the country this year, top to bottom, may be those kids that are too smart for their own good. Even with perennial power Princeton at 1-2, the league boasts No. 12 Cornell, No. 18 Yale, No. 19 Harvard and No. 20 Penn. That’s five teams in the top 20. Brown just dropped out of the poll, and Dartmouth rounds out the conference as a team that still remains tough to beat.

But coaches warn against letting the Tigers’ early struggles fool you. Princeton is still the defending national champ. And its losses came against No. 1 Hopkins and No. 3 Virginia, or as Pietramala puts it, ‘All the top teams are just beating the hell out of each other.’

‘I haven’t written them off yet,’ he added. ‘A lot of people have. But that would be a big mistake. You’ll see.’

And don’t forget. Even if Princeton loses all of its out-of-conference games, it can still get in the tournament by winning the Ivy League. Although, on account of the conference depth, that may be easier said than done.

NUMBERS DON’T LIE

83 and 39

Now officially the longest college lacrosse game in history, North Carolina needed 83 minutes and 39 seconds to beat Navy two weeks ago in a six-overtime game.

4

The number of games Syracuse has won this season.

4

The number of games the other three Final Four teams from last year — Princeton, Towson and Notre Dame — have won combined.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

Since it was coaches-ask-the-questions week, we’ll go with Dirrigl — a Syracuse graduate — and his opening remarks.

‘How’s the weather up there in Syracuse? I remember it was awful. Just awful.”

Published on March 20, 2002 at 12:00 pm