Historic Clash of Lacrosse Titans Sells Out

The latest episode of the 2012 lacrosse season’s Game of Thrones took place at Homewood Field on Saturday evening as 8,500 fans watched Maryland upset Hopkins, 9-6.

The teams have squared off against each other 108 times.

Terrapin tailgaters had invaded the neighborhood early in the afternoon and cars lined the streets in all directions. Every couple of years, Tuscany-Canterbury becomes the epicenter of lacrosse.

Following my normal ritual, I walked up to the stadium entrance on University Parkway with my children a few minutes before game time and saw a sign that read “Sold Out.” The smell of cheese steak and Italian sausage permeated the slight breeze outside the stadium.

I’d invited friends who’d never seen a lacrosse game and promised that tickets would not be a problem. We needed one and it didn’t look good. In fact, it resembled a Rolling Stones concert.

I started holding up one finger like I used to do at Grateful Dead shows.

“One for sale,” I heard and we grabbed it—only $4.00 over face value.

All manner of fans from the vast Maryland lacrosse kingdom had shown up wearing the vibrant uniforms of the legendary recreation programs from Carroll Manor to Annapolis that feed the pipeline of the nation’s finest lacrosse players.

Hopkins and Maryland each had their share of Baltimore boys in their starting line-ups from , McDonough, Calvert Hall and Loyola.

I tried to explain lacrosse to my friends over some Boardwalk fries.

"Does the Hopkins football team draw this many fans?"  Greg asked. He’d relocated to Baltimore from Los Angeles, but was raised in the Midwest.

"No," I answered.

"Really?"

Bill Belichick and John Harbaugh were in attendance but mostly likely have never seen the Hopkins football team play.

I told Greg that lacrosse was a game in which the momentum could change at any moment.

Hopkins had jumped to an early 2-0 lead and Maryland matched their score by the end of the first quarter. The Jays held a flimsy 5-3 lead at half but scored quickly to open the 3rd quarter—it was their last goal.

The Terps caught fire and took their first lead with nine minutes left, 7-6. Wearing black uniforms with red numbers and abstract flashes of the state flag on their shoulder pads and covering their helmets, they packed their turtle shells in front of their goal and made it impossible for Hopkins to get a clean look.

Their bench exploded with every score. Maryland owned Homewood Field for most of the second half and atoned for last year’s overtime time loss after squandering a five-goal lead.

I remembered Hopkins vs. Maryland contests as a kid when Frank Urso, “the mustachioed man child” as he was called in a Sports Illustrated article wreaked havoc on the Jays and a large Hopkins attackman named Franz Wittelsberger leveled opposing goalies for fun. The Pep Band played "Georgie Girl" in those days along with K.C. and the Sunshine Band.

Now, the band plays Adele and Ozzy Osbourne now and Hopkins fans were given inflatable spirit sticks to bang together in a thunderous racket.

Saturday’s game demonstrated the way the season has gone thus far. No lacrosse regime has emerged as the team to beat and it will come down to the post season. Maryland, Hopkins, UNC, Massachusetts, Duke, UVA, Cornell and even undefeated Loyola are all in the hunt for a national championship.

Hopkins travels west of the Jones-Falls on April 28 to face the Greyhounds in the stadium on the hill.

On the way home, I ran into my neighbor Logan Duckwall, age 12.

"I saw Bill Belichick," he said, unimpressed. "I said, ‘Hey Bill’ and he just kind of looked at me."

Within the friendly confines of Homewood Field, where everyone is on a first-name basis, the Patriot coach is just another lacrosse fan.

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