BALTIMORE, MD – Sophomore Niko Kotoulas came off the bench to lead Johns Hopkins with 14 points as the Blue Jays held off a pesky Swarthmore Garnet team to win 60-53. The Blue Jays win their third straight as they improve to 13-8 overall and 10-4 in the Centennial Conference (CC), while the Garnet fall to 6-15 overall and 3-11 in the league. With the win, Hopkins remains in a third-place tie in the CC standings with four games remaining.
The game was a tale of two halves; the Blue Jays led by as many as 17 in the first half and took a 34-19 lead into the locker room before they went ice cold from the floor and allowed the Garnet to pull within one with 12:55 to play. Swarthmore held Hopkins without a field goal for more than 12 minutes, while outscoring the home team 17-2 in a run that bridged halftime. The Garnet had the final say of the first half with a Joe Keedy lay-up with 1:09 to go, making it a 15-point game at the break.
Swarthmore was hot coming out of the locker room, scoring the first 15 points of the half to make it just a one-point game at the 12:55-mark. Luke McCartin capped the run with a three-pointer and followed by a fast-break lay-up, sparking a Hopkins timeout. The Blue Jays finally ended the drought with a Kotoulas bucket at 12:28 that ignited a 13-3 run and saw JHU push its lead back to double digits. Senior Daniel Corbett followed Kotoulas' lay-up with a bucket from downtown and just like that the lead was six. Junior George Bugarinovic then converted a fast-break lay-up followed by a pair of free throws from classmate Omar Randall to make it a 10-point game.
McCartin cut the deficit to seven with a three-pointer, one of his three in the second half, but the Blue Jays answered with buckets from Kotoulas and Randall to give JHU a 47-36 lead with 9:31 on the clock. The Garnet weren't going away and were able to chip the lead down to just four, on a McCartin triple, by the 5:27-mark. Senior Connor McIntyre came right back with a pair of shots from the line, followed by an old-fashioned three-point play by Kotoulas to stake Hopkins to a nine-point lead as the clock ticked under two minutes.
Jay Kobert got the Garnet back within seven with a pair of free throws and then Swarthmore got a stop on defense. But, Corbett responded with a block on a three-point shot by Keedy, Bugarinovic grabbed the rebound and sent an outlet pass to Corbett, who was all alone on the other end for the easy bucket with 34 ticks on the clock. On the ensuing possession, Seth Liebert pulled the Garnet back within seven with a bucket in the paint, but they were forced to foul. Bugarinovic sank both of his shots from the charity stripe before Kober got a late bucket to end the game.
It was a close game in the early goings but Hopkins would slowly push out to an 11-point lead on a Gene Williams' three with 9:51 to go in the first half. Liebert then sandwiched buckets around a three-pointer from Kotoulas and JHU led 26-16 just over a minute later. After a nearly three-minute scoring drought for both teams, Randall converted a pair of free throws to push the lead to 12. After getting a stop on defense, junior Jimmy Hammer was sent to the line, where he hit the front-end of a pair of shots. Sophomore Matt Chiusano grabbed the board off the second shot and kicked it out to a wide-open Hammer, who drained it from downtown with 5:00 to play. As it turned out, that would be the Blue Jays' last field goal for 12 minutes and 32 seconds. Tom Wilmot would hit one of two free throws for Swarthmore but a pair from Williams would give Hopkins its biggest lead of the game at 17 with 1:20 on the clock. Keedy would close out the first-half scoring however just 11 seconds later.
Kotoulas went 6-of-8 from the floor and also grabbed four rebounds to lead the Blue Jays with 14 points. Williams was the only other player in double figures for Hopkins with 10 points. Corbett finished with a game-high five steals, one shy of his career high, while also scoring nine points and handing out two assists. McCartin, who went 4-of-8 from three-point, led Swarthmore with 14 points while Liebert had 11 and Kobert added 10. Keedy grabbed a game-high seven rebounds and also dished four assists.
Hopkins hits the road on Wednesday, February 12 to take on Gettysburg in Centennial Conference action. The Centennial Conference match-up is set for a 6:00 pm tip at Bream Gym.