The setting is almost perfect for tonight’s Johns Hopkins-Maryland game. Both teams are ranked in the top five. It’s already a sellout, and thousands more will watch on television. The last three meetings have been decided by a goal each.
In short, the bitterest rivals in men’s lacrosse will tangle for the 100th time when top-ranked Hopkins (8-1) welcomes No.4 Maryland (8-1) to Baltimore. It’s the sport’s equivalent of epic intrastate battles like Duke-North Carolina or UCLA-Southern Cal.
“Especially for guys from around here, it’s absolutely the greatest thing to ever happen,” said Hopkins freshman goalie Jesse Schwartzman, a native of the Baltimore area. “When people ask me about it, I compare it to Duke-North Carolina in basketball and Miami-Florida State in football. It’s just supernatural, pretty much. It’s not something you come upon too often.”
Yet it seems there is one glitch — at least to those with Terrapins ties: It will be played at Hopkins’ Homewood Field.
“It’s the devil’s den,” former Maryland goalie and 2001 All-American Pat McGinnis said. “That field [stinks]. I hate it. The lights are low, the fans are obnoxious. … No matter how much Homewood wants to be the hotbed of good lacrosse, the final four at Byrd Stadium when there’s 30,000 people there is better.”
McGinnis’ distaste for Hopkins reflects the feelings on both sides of the sport’s self-proclaimed greatest rivalry. Both programs consistently are among the best in the nation and have produced many of lacrosse’s most recognized personalities.
But like so many other rivalries, this series is fueled by a history of tight, meaningful meetings — of which Hopkins and Maryland have had plenty. Before the NCAA tournament was established in 1971, it was the final game of the season for both teams.
“It meant your season was going to end on a very positive high or, if you lost, on a very, very sour note,” said Bob Scott, who coached the Blue Jays from 1955 to 1974 before serving as athletic director from 1974 to 1995. “Quite often, the championship was on the line. It being the last game of the season for Maryland and Hopkins, it was the game.”
Maryland, which trails in the series 62-36-1, won its first NCAA title in 1973 by defeating Hopkins, but the Blue Jays won the title game against the Terps a year later in Scott’s finale. Hopkins also upended Maryland in the 1979 national final.
Perhaps the most memorable postseason meetings came in a pair of semifinals. In 1987, Hopkins ended Maryland’s perfect season with a 13-8 victory en route to its last national title. Eight years later, the Blue Jays were 13-0 and seemingly invincible entering the semifinals, but goalie Brian Dougherty made 23 saves as the Terps eviscerated Hopkins 16-8 at Byrd Stadium.
Regular-season games have yielded memorable finishes the last three years, including a pair of Hopkins overtime victories the last two. The 2002 tussle was especially fierce, with then-freshman Kyle Barrie scoring the game-winner at Homewood in what easily could have been a Maryland victory.
“I lost the faceoff in overtime, and I’m thinking, ’Oh … God … I lost the faceoff, we’re going to lose to Maryland, it’s homecoming, in front of all these people.’” Hopkins junior midfielder Kyle Harrison recalled this week. “We go down and play defense, and they throw a skip pass, and I see Corey Harned throw up one hand with a long stick and pick it out of the air. We come downfield and call time out [and eventually win]. It was unbelievable. I literally got chills telling you that.”
The bonds several participants have with both schools tighten the rivalry even further. Hopkins midfielder Kevin Boland’s father played on Maryland’s 1973 national title team. Blue Jays freshman attackman Jake Byrne is the brother of Matt Hahn, Maryland’s all-time leading goal scorer. Longtime Terps assistant Dave Slafkosky is a Hopkins grad. Brothers Andrew Schwartzman, a Maryland midfielder, and Jesse Schwartzman, Hopkins’ backup goalie, will face each other for the first time tonight.
“It’s almost incestuous,” former Maryland coach Dick Edell said.
Few have been as directly involved in the last two decades as Edell, a man whose fiery, gregarious personality was perfectly suited for this sort of game. Edell was — and though now retired, still is — wired in the week leading up to the Hopkins game, and his players knew it.
“He was flat-out crazy,” McGinnis said. “He may have lost a couple years off his life. I know I lost a couple off mine because of the way he was in Hopkins week.”
As off-kilter as Edell could be before the game, he went to another level during it. Senior defenseman Chris Passavia smiled this week as he recalled an in-game encounter in 2001 between Edell and Hopkins coach Dave Pietramala, a former All-American defenseman.
“During the game, you didn’t see a more committed and devoted individual than Big Man,” Passavia said. “I’ve never seen Petro back down to anybody, but I saw one time Big Man yell directly at him. I saw a little respect. If nothing else, I saw respect.”
Respect is a significant component of the teams’ relationship, and each school emphasized this week how much it appreciates what the other has done for the sport. Still, it’s tough to hide the fact the teams simply do not like each other.
“When I first came here, it was one of those things that was just passed down,” said former Hopkins attackman Joe Cowan, a three-time All-America selection (1967 to 1969). “It came with the territory. It came with wearing the Hopkins black and blue. When you put that jersey on, you had the same feeling about Maryland and wanting to beat them.”
The antagonism is even more vehement on the Maryland side. Historically a physical team, Maryland often is perceived as the large public university that isn’t nearly as good or as well off as the small private school in the largest city of a state long considered the cradle of college lacrosse.
“This is a blue-collar school, and that’s what we represent,” Passavia said. “Whether Hopkins represents the white collar, I don’t know. We certainly represent the hard-working guy.”
The sport does have other feuds but none as long-running or quite as fierce. Virginia isn’t as tradition-rich as either Hopkins or Maryland, and Navy doesn’t rate as the top rival of either of its in-state foes. Princeton and Syracuse, the sport’s royalty for more than a decade, are relative newcomers to lacrosse’s upper echelon.
So it’s not surprising that even those with no connection to Hopkins or Maryland speak reverently about the schools’ annual battle.
“In the world of college [nonrevenue] sports, I’m not sure it gets much bigger than this,” Navy coach Richie Meade said. “Army-Navy is an institutional rivalry. It is a traditional rivalry. The Maryland-Hopkins rivalry is more of a hate game. I call these things a blood fight. It’s going to be a nasty game. It’ll be played with great skill, but the mentality I think is different. You don’t get that from one year. You get that from decades of emotion.”
That history will be on display tonight. In a nod to the past, both teams will wear 1970s throwback jerseys. Edell and former coach Bud Beardmore will serve as Maryland’s honorary captains, while Scott and Henry Ciccarone Jr., the son of late Hopkins coach Henry Ciccarone, will fill the same role for the Blue Jays.
Just after 8 p.m., though, the series’ legends will take a back seat to today’s players, who hope to leave their mark on a rivalry both sides cherish.
“We can play that one on Route 1, on York Road, on downtown Fayette Street, it’ll be a battle,” Edell said. “I can’t imagine how this one will be. I don’t know if it can be more intense.”
Added Pietramala: “You have to remember, the last 99 years, it doesn’t mean anything [tonight] when that whistle blows. It’ll be the 100th year that decides who wins or loses.”
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