Johns Hopkins: Undefeated Football, Regional XC Champs

Johns Hopkins Football Playoff Picture from 2012 season, Credit: David Richard-USA TODAY Sports

Johns Hopkins University had a great sports day on Saturday. The Blue Jays football team completed a perfect 10-0 season, the defending national champion women’s cross country team won their seventh consecutive regional championship, and the women’s soccer team opened the NCAA tournament with a first-round victory.

JHU football capped their perfect season with a 48-17 drubbing of McDaniel College at home on Saturday. The game was over very early, as the score at the half was 41-7. The victory gave the Jays their fourth consecutive Centennial Conference championship.

With their 14^th straight win over McDaniel, Hopkins finished the regular season unbeaten for the second year in a row, and three of the past four years. The senior class finish their careers unbeaten at home in the regular season.

JHU is ranked #7 in Division III and will look forward to the NCAA playoffs. The brackets will be announced today at 6:00.

Even more powerful than the football team is the #1 nationally-ranked women’s cross country team. By winning the regional championship (hosted by Dickinson College on the famous Big Spring HS course in Newville, PA), the Blue Jays women gained an automatic bid to the National Championships next weekend in Mason, Ohio.

The JHU women scored the incredibly low total of 28 points on a 1-2-5-7-13 finish. Dickinson was second in the 51-team field of 370 runners.

To give some perspective to the margin of victory, even if the other 50 teams in the race combined as one team, JHU would have still won the race by two points.

Junior Sophia Meehan covered the relatively flat and fast course in 21:18, breaking the 6k course record and winning comfortably over freshman teammate Bridget Gottlieb (21:54). Frances Loeb was fifth and Tess Meehan seventh.

The JHU men placed third in the meet and will await news of a possible (and probable) national at-large invitation. The Salisbury University men were 10^th in the 47-team field.

The JHU women’s soccer team (17-3-1) on Saturday scored a 4-0 win over Farmingdale. With the win, they will play The State University of New York at Genesco at 5:00 in Baltimore today. SUNY Genesco came back from a 3-0 deficit to Western Maryland’s Frostburg University to advance against the Jays. A win for JHU would put them into the final 16 in the tournament.

The JHU men’s soccer team had previously finished the season 9-7-2.