Nov. 15, 2014
BALTIMORE, MD – Seventh-ranked Johns Hopkins sprinted out to a 21-0 lead less than 10 minutes into Saturday's game against rival McDaniel, pushed the lead to 41-7 at the half and never looked back in cruising to a 48-17 victory at Homewood Field Saturday afternoon. The victory caps a perfect 10-0 regular season for the Blue Jays, who also secured the outright Centennial Conference title for the fourth straight year with a 9-0 league mark.
Johns Hopkins, which was already assured of no worse than at least a share of the title entering the game and had secured the league's automatic bid to the upcoming NCAA Playoffs, defeated its long-time rival for the 14th straight time in finishing the regular season undefeated for the second straight year and the third time in four years.
The bracket for the 2014 NCAA Division III Football Playoffs will be announced on Sunday, November 16 at 6 pm with a live web stream of the announcement available at www.ncaa.com.
After the teams traded punts to open the game, the Blue Jays took all the drama out of the 93rd meeting in series history by scoring three touchdowns in a span of just under four minutes. Each drive took less than two minutes.
A 14-yard Brandon Cherry touchdown run got the scoring started as he capped a five-play, 52-yard drive that took just 72 seconds with his sixth rushing touchdown of the year. A 21-yard scoring pass from senior Braden Anderson to sophomore Quinn Donaldson followed on Hopkins' next possession to quickly double the seven-point lead to 14-0.
McDaniel (1-9, 0-9 Centennial) went into its bag of tricks on the kickoff after Donaldson's touchdown, only to have a lateral from Mike Oliveto fail to reach Marquise Findley-Smith and Hopkins' Jesse Poore recovered the ball at the Green Terror nine-yard line. Three plays later Anderson scored on bootleg from one yard out and the Blue Jays had their fourth 21-0 first quarter lead in the last five games.
The Terror answered Anderson's scoring run with their best drive of the day as they went 80 yards in just four plays and sophomore Matty Callahan hit JT Kotowski with a 20-yard touchdown pass to slice the deficit to 21-7 with 3:56 remaining in the opening period. In addition to the touchdown pass, Callahan had a season-long 49-yard run that fueled the drive.
The Blue Jays effectively put the game away with a 20-0 run over the final 16 minutes of the first half to account for the 41-7 halftime lead. Anderson fired a seven-yard touchdown pass to senior tight end Brad Foulke late in the first quarter and junior Will Nunn added a 17-yard scoring strike to freshman David Brookhart late in the second, while freshman Jamie Sullivan added a pair of field goals (25, 23) between those scores.
Hopkins capped its scoring when sophomore Jonathan Germano scampered three yards on the Blue Jays' opening possession of the third quarter to push the lead to 48-7. The run polished off a 10-play, 74-yard drive.
McDaniel closed the scoring with 10 points in the fourth quarter on a 28-yard Spencer Wiersberg field goal and an 11-yard run by Tayahd Campbell.
Anderson fueled a 459-yard day by the Blue Jay offense as he was 14-of-18 for 165 yards with the two touchdowns and also rushed for 38 yards and the one score. Germano rushed for a team-high 58 yards and the one touchdown.
Defensively, Johns Hopkins held the Terror to 299 yards of total offense, forced five turnovers and sacked Callahan five times. Sophomore Dan Johnson led the way with six tackles and he added one of Johns Hopkins' two interceptions on the day.
Callahan was 16-of-30 for 111 yards with the one score and also rushed for 99 yards on 18 carries. Campbell added 54 yards rushing and the one touchdown along with five receptions for 37 yards. Dan Trainor posted a game-high 13 tackles, while Drew Scott posted seven tackles and a pair of interceptions.
Notes: The Johns Hopkins seniors improved their record to 40-4 since arriving at Homewood. Already the winningest class in school history, they are just the second class in Centennial Conference history to win 40 games (McDaniel's class of 2000 won 41 from 1997-2000). The current Blue Jay seniors never lost a regular season game at Homewood Field (20-0). The Blue Jays are now 43-1 in their last 44 regular season games and tied the school single-season record for wins with their 10th today. Dating back to 2001, Johns Hopkins is 16-1 in regular season home games in the month of November.
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