Hello darkness, my old friend. After two weeks of pitiful offense, and atruggling defense, the lax Bucks head to Baltimore to take on Hopkins, hoping to reverse the skid that has taken them from the top 5 to outside the top 10.
In Hopkins, the Buckeyes have an opportunity to get a pretty high quality win over a team with good wins, but tough losses. Much like Rutgers and Penn State, however, OSU will have to handle a true star in freshman Joey Epstein to do it.
Hopefully the team figures out some solutions to nagging problems. Let's discuss.
Johns Hopkins comes into this matchup seriously struggling on offense. The Jays are only shooting 28.2%, well below what is needed to be even a good team.
Outside of the aforementioned Epstein (#32, 28 goals, 13 assists), the team has regressed a bit. Senior Kyle Marr (#13) has 21 goals and 8 assists on the year as the Jays best outside shooter, but he is still below the 30% mark in shot percentage.
Junior Cole Williams (#14) had 49 points last year, but has seen his numbers dip drastically. Really, the Jays' O goes as Epstein goes. And Epstein may be a better player than Shack Stanwick was, in his very first year of college lacrosse.
Ohio State will have to blanket Epstein with Borges and someone on the slide, as he will be key. Fortunately, Hopkins is not nearly as efficient and effective in the offensive end as Penn State.
IF the Buckeyes can deal with Epstein, they can get a sneaky W.
Defensively, Hopkins did a fantastic job against Rutgers early to prevent the Scarlet Knights from really threatening at any point during their game. Even though the game ended in a two-goal victory, Rutgers didn't score until around halfway through the second quarter.
The good news for OSU is that Johns Hopkins faded late, getting doubled up in Q4 to allow Rutgers to close within 2. If, and it is a BIG if, the Buckeyes can get their passing back on point, there will be opportunities to score open looks by getting the ball backside.
The Jays can struggle to communicate on D, giving offenses open looks. Ohio State's issues have stemmed from absolutely garbage dodges and suddenly ice cold shooting.
Tre Leclaire still lights it up, but the middie play has cratered. Jack Jasinski seemed to forget how to dodge the past two weeks, and Jack Myers has shown why it's important to be quick as a facilitator, with his (relatively) lumbering dodges never really threatening the goal.
It's gotten to the point that sophomore JT Bugliosi, a HS and college attackman, is getting extended time at midfield. Bugliosi has some speed, but went 0-3 shooting against Penn State.
For the Buckeyes to win, they'll need to get some good dodges from somewhere, and really improve the ball movement. Penn State shut down everything the Buckeyes do by really sloughing in every time OSU showed dodge, so anytime a defender looked even slightly beat, the slide was already in the dodger's pocket.
And, by taking away both directions, Penn State forced OSU to try and find new ways to score passing the ball, which obviously didn't happen.
Hopefully, and it's getting to be a forlorn one, the Buckeyes can find their early season form and pump in a dozen goals or more on Sunday.
In goal, Ohio State has a slight edge, on paper. Hopkins starts sophomore Ryan Darby (#15), who is currently giving up 12.25 goals per game. Darby has a .490 save percentage on the year, which isn't exactly stellar.
Josh Kirson comes into this week giving up barely over 10 goals per game, and saving 52% of his shots. That said, Kirson has been under 40% the past two weeks.
And, despite some serious issues, no one has more talent on the roster than Johns Hopkins. We will see what happens, but I have to believe Kirson will have a short leash this week.
At the faceoff X, Justin Inacio will once again be battling a top FOGO in Kyle Prouty. After going 5 of 12 last year against Inacio, Prouty is winning 65.2% of his faceoffs this year.
Inacio has had some really dominant weeks, and really down weeks, but will have to be on to give the Buckeyes a shot at victory. OSU was at its best in Q1 against Penn State, where Inacio went 6 of 7 against Arceri.
With the recent struggles on O, possessions are even more important.
On special teams, OSU actually had a pretty decent week last week, scoring once in 3 tries and blanking the Nittany Lions on their two chances with the extra man. That said, on the year OSU has been abysmal.
The Buckeyes are converting 25% of their Man Up chances, and allowing opponents to score on nearly 36% of their chances. Hopkins is about where the Buckeyes would love to be, scoring 37% on Man Up and holding opponents to 28% on Man Down.
Once again (you know how it goes), if the Buckeyes want to win, they HAVE to avoid committing penalties. That's the long and short of it.
This is a must-win game. Really, for any postseason play whatsoever. The Buckeyes are 0-2 in the B1G, and have 3 games left. 3 games to make or break the season.
And they're headed into enemy territory. What the heck, roll them dice.
Final prediction: 14-13, Buckeyes in OT.