OWINGS MILLS, MD – Johns Hopkins football coach Greg Chimera knew his team would play hard in Saturday's season-opener at Stevenson. After all, it had been more than 650 days since the Blue Jays last played a game and the excitement leading up to the game was evident from the day the team arrived on campus three weeks ago. The question he may not have been able to answer so clearly was how well would his team play.
Consider that question answered in emphatic fashion as Johns Hopkins rolled up 53 points and 596 yards of total offense and held the Mustangs (0-1) to just three points through three quarters of a 53-18 season-opening victory at Mustang Stadium.
The Blue Jays (1-0) had a 13-3 lead with just over two minutes remaining in the first half. Less than four minutes of game time later and the lead had swelled to 33-3 and the outcome was never in doubt over the final 28 minutes.
Nursing the 10-point lead, the Blue Jays went 75 yards in five plays and capped an 81-second drive when freshman guard Garrett Brophy recovered a fumble in the end zone for a touchdown to make it 20-3 with 1:07 showing on the second-quarter clock.
Senior Ross Andersson then intercepted Stevenson's Ryan Sedgwick and returned the pick to the Stevenson 33-yard line. After a holding penalty set them back 10 yards, the Blue Jays got back-to-back 18-yard completions from Ryan Stevens to Danny Wolf and Will Leger and Leger was then on the back end of a three-yard touchdown pass from Stevens to make it 27-3 just before halftime.
The Blue Jays wasted no time putting the game away on the first possession of the third quarter as they needed just five plays to go 75 yards with Stevens finding senior Harrison Wellmann in stride deep down the middle for a 64-yard touchdown pass that gave Hopkins the 30-point lead. Dating back to 2019, that was Wellmann's third touchdown reception of 60 or more yards in the last eight games.
That lead held until early in the fourth quarter, when Sedgwick matched Stevens' 64-yard touchdown pass with a 64-yard scoring strike of his own, this one to Cory Jones just 53 seconds into the final period that made it 33-10. That play capped a five-play, 91-yard scoring drive for the Mustangs.
A pair of Johns Hopkins field goals – a 45-yarder from Kyle Battles and a 36-yarder from John Krill – pushed the lead to 39-10 before Ryan Hubley and Artie Collins sandwiched touchdown receptions of 14 and 23 yards for Johns Hopkins around a 19-yard Sedgwick-to-Brandon Booze touchdown connection for Stevenson to close out a wild fourth quarter that saw the teams combine for 35 points.
Johns Hopkins had built a 13-0 lead by the end of the first quarter on the strength of Stevens' scoring passes to Quinn Revere (7 yards) and Wellmann (30) in the first 13:16 of the game. The 13-point margin stood until late the second quarter, when Stevenson went 70 yards in 11 plays and got on the board with a 33-yard Brody Campbell field goal with 2:28 showing on the first-half clock. Brophy's fumble recovery for a touchdown came 81 seconds later and ignited the decisive four-minute, 20-point run that sealed Johns Hopkins' 10th straight season-opening victory.
Stevens was 31-of-46 for 483 yards and five touchdowns against one interception to lead the way for the Blue Jays. His 483 passing yards are the most ever in a season opener for a Johns Hopkins quarterback and the third-highest single-game total in school history. His five TD passes are the most in an opener by a Blue Jay QB since Jon Germano had five at Randolph-Macon in 2015.
Wellmann had a game-high 11 receptions for 230 yards and the two scores; his 230 receiving yards are a career high and the third-highest single-game total in school history as well. Revere added seven receptions for 126 yards and the one touchdown in his Blue Jay debut.
The Blue Jay defense collected two interceptions and more than 180 of Stevenson's 451 yards of total offense came in the fourth quarter. Nick Seidel had a team-high nine tackles, while Macauley Kilbane added eight stops. Andersson and Finn Zechman collected the two interceptions for Johns Hopkins.
Sedgwick threw for 382 yards and two scores with the two interceptions and Steven Smothers had 10 receptions for 139 yards.
Johns Hopkins will return to action on Saturday, September 11 when the Blue Jays host Ursinus in the Centennial Conference opener for both teams.
Notes: Wellmann topped 100 career receptions with his 11 today (109) and moved into a tie for eighth in school history in career TD receptions (19) • Hubley moved into ninth on JHU's career receptions list (156) with his three today • Battles' 45-yard field goal is tied for the eighth-longest in school history • Stevens in the 11th consecutive Johns Hopkins quarterback to win the first start of his career – that streak dates back to a 21-14 win for Shane Kibbe as JHU's starting quarterback against Randolph-Macon in 2006.
Stevens, Wellmann, Johns Hopkins Roll Past Stevenson, 53-18
/seasons/2021/boxscores/20210904_m8rn.xml
2021
Johns Hopkins
53
Stevenson
18
| Final | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | T |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. 17 Johns Hopkins (1-0) | 13 | 14 | 6 | 20 | 53 |
| Stevenson (0-1) | 0 | 3 | 0 | 15 | 18 |
Sep 04, 2021
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