Oct. 29, 2016
COLLEGEVILLE, PA -- Johns Hopkins senior quarterback Jonathan Germano threw for a career-high six touchdowns and a personal-best 443 yards to lead the seventh-ranked Blue Jays past host Ursinus, 42-7, at Patterson Field Saturday afternoon. The six touchdown passes are one shy of the Johns Hopkins single-game record, while the 443 yards is tied for the fourth-best mark in school history.
The win improves Hopkins' record to 8-0 overall and 7-0 in the Centennial Conference; the Blue Jays have now won 35 straight Centennial Conference games, 39 straight regular season games and 23 straight in the month of October.
Four different receivers were on the back end of Germano touchdown passes, including three in the first quarter as the Blue Jays built a 21-0 lead after the opening 15 minutes.
A 12-yard scoring pass to senior Boone Lewis, Jr. capped a seven-play, 80-yard drive that got the Blue Jays on the board and a 32-yard scoring pass to senior Quinn Donaldson 31 seconds later doubled the lead to 14-0. Pat Runger had forced an Ursinus fumble on the first play after Lewis's touchdown to give the Blue Jays the ball at the UC 25 and Germano and Donaldson hooked up three plays later.
Johns Hopkins had its 21-point first-quarter lead just under six minutes later when Germano found junior Brett Caggiano all alone down the sideline to polish off a six-play, 76-yard drive that took just 2:16. At the end of the first quarter, the Blue Jays had less than five minutes of possession time, but had rolled up 188 yards of offense and had built the 21-0 lead.
The quick-strike Blue Jays were back at it early in the second quarter as Germano connected with Donaldson down the sideline and Donaldson stiff-armed a defender to the ground to complete a 75-yard scoring play. The pass and reception were the longest of Germano and Donaldson's careers and the longest pass play for Johns Hopkins this season.
Hopkins carried the 28-0 lead into the third quarter and used scoring drives of 85 and 99 yards to push the margin out to 42-0 less than nine minutes into the second half.
The Blue Jays took the opening possession of the second half and went 85 yards in 11 plays with Germano connecting with senior Bradley Munday for an 18-yard touchdown with 10:06 on the third-quarter clock; Hopkins was 3-for-3 on third down on the drive with Germano's scoring pass to Munday coming on third-and-six.
The Bears were forced to punt on their ensuing possession and pinned the Blue Jays at their own one-yard line with a perfect 38-yard punt by Hunter Bednarczk.
Two long completions from Germano to sophomore Luke McFadden, the first for 35 yards and the second for 39, moved the Blue Jays from their one to the Ursinus 25 in just two plays. Three plays later, faced with a third-and-five from the Ursinus 20, Germano scrambled to his left and found Caggiano cutting inside and Caggiano raced untouched into the end zone to give Hopkins the 42-0 lead.
Ursinus avoided the shutout early in the fourth quarter when the Bears moved 81 yards in seven plays and got a six-yard run from Stacey Gardner to cap the drive. The touchdown helped Ursinus avoid its first shutout in 82 games.
Germano, whose previous career-highs were five touchdown passes at Randolph-Macon in 2015 and 332 passing yards earlier this season at Muhlenberg, notched a pair of milestones on his career day as his first touchdown pass was the 50th of his career and the 443 passing yards boosted his career total to 5,269 yards. He passed Johns Hopkins head coach Jim Margraff for second place on the Blue Jays' career touchdown passes list (55) and he became the sixth player in school history to reach 5,000 career passing yards.
Ten different players had at least one reception on the day for Johns Hopkins with Donaldson (3-114-2), Caggiano (3-90-2) and McFadden (4-86-0) leading the way.
Seniors Garrett Spek (8 tackles), Jack Campbell (7) and Pat Runger (6, one forced fumble, one pass breakup) led the way for the Blue Jay defense, which held in check an Ursinus offense that had averaged 30 points in its last three games; the Bears were just 4-of-16 on third-down chances and more than one-third of their 354 yards came in the fourth quarter after the Blue Jays had built the 42-point lead. Campbell's six tackles pushed him past 250 in his career (254).
A pair of Ursinus quarterbacks combined to go 25-of-42 for 209 yards with Carmen Fortino on the back end of seven of those completions for 61 yards. Gardner rushed for a team-high 63 yards and one score with 49 of those 63 yards coming on one play.
Johns Hopkins returns to action on Saturday, November 5 when the Blue Jays travel to Franklin & Marshall for a crucial game against the Diplomats. Hopkins can clinch no worse than a share of the Centennial Conference title and lock up the league's automatic bid to the upcoming NCAA Playoffs with a win against the Diplomats. Franklin & Marshall dropped a 20-10 decision at Susquehanna earlier today.
Notes: Johns Hopkins has now won 19 consecutive regular season road games dating back to 2012 • The Blue Jays have not allowed more than 17 points in a game played in October since October 19, 2012 • JHU has scored 18 first-half touchdowns on 30 first-half possessions in the last four games.
- Pride and Poise -