Blue Jays

The NCAA Division I men's lacrosse tournament will be missing Johns Hopkins for the first time in 42 years this season. After a 9-5 season, the Blue Jays were left out of the NCAA Tournament tonight. But three local teams will be playing next weekend. Maryland is the No. 6 seed and will face Cornell Sunday at 1 p.m. in College Park. Towson, the winner of the CAA tournament, will face No. 3 seed Ohio State Sunday at 3 p.m. in Columbus. Defending national champion Loyola will face Duke in Raleigh, N.C., on Sunday at 5:15 p.m. The lack of quality wins hurt Johns Hopkins this season.

Now that Johns Hopkins has opened the door for conferences to woo the illustrious program, the most pressing question centers on if there is one league that best suits the Blue Jays - and vice versa. If coach Dave Pietramala and athletic director Tom Calder are steadfast in retaining traditional rivalries, the Atlantic Coast Conference would appear to be the best fit. Joining that league would allow Johns Hopkins to maintain traditional series with North Carolina, Syracuse and Virginia, and the team would simply have to carve out space for Duke and Notre Dame.

The Orioles and Blue Jays are back at it for the second game of their three-game series this afternoon. The Birds' starting lineup looks exactly the same as last nights, with Wilson Betemit at third and Mark Reynolds in the DH spot. Also of note, left-hander Tsuyoshi Wada made his second start in extended spring training. He threw 100 pitches and went six shutout innings, allowing two hits, while striking out seven and walking five against the Rays minor leaguers. Wada's next outing will likely be for Triple-A Norfolk on April 19 at Gwinnett.

For the first five weeks of the season, the Orioles slogged through one of the toughest early season schedules in baseball and came out clean on the other side. An impressive display of power, timely hitting and solid relief that has made them one of the winningest teams in either league at the quarter pole. So, what happens? They get a quick breather against a couple of struggling teams and go 2-3 before wading into another long stretch of games that features three divisional rivals and tough series against the Detroit Tigers and Washington Nationals.

The Orioles sent a team devoid of starters to Dunedin to face the Blue Jays on Wednesday afternoon. But the game still had plenty of roster spot ramifications with left-hander Dana Eveland on the mound still competing for a starting rotation spot. Eveland, who had thrown just nine innings this spring and most recently two single-inning stints, allowed three runs on six hits over four innings, his longest spring outing, in the Orioles' 9-3 loss to the Blue Jays at Florida Auto Exchange Stadium.

A night after being shut out for the first time in 49 games, the Orioles have brought their bats in their series finale against the Blue Jays. The Orioles have hit six homers tonight after seven innings, including three in the five-run fifth, to build up a 10-2 lead. Their six homers is the most they've hit since clubbing six in a 10-6 win over the Yankees on Sept. 6. In the fifth, Jim Thome hit his first homer at Camden Yards as an Oriole, the 19th of his career here, to tie the game at 2. Three batters later, Manny Machado went deep to left for his his fifth career homer.

The Johns Hopkins men's lacrosse program plans to surrender its status as an independent and join a conference, the university announced Friday. The Blue Jays have competed independently for 130 years, winning nine NCAA championships and qualifying for 41 consecutive NCAA tournaments before getting left out of the postseason earlier this month. In a letter to the Johns Hopkins community and posted on the school's website, president Ronald J. Daniels said he accepted the recommendation of a seven-member special committee that proposed that the program pursue a conference affiliation.

Johns Hopkins was left out of the NCAA tournament Sunday night for the first time since 1971. The exclusion snapped a streak of 41 consecutive appearances in the tournament, which ended what had been the longest active streak in a Division I team sport. The streak was a point of pride for the program, but could also be a burden as senior classes feared about being the one unable to extend the run. Coach Dave Pietramala said the streak did not weigh on him. But for the players? That might have been a different story.

The NCAA Division I men's lacrosse tournament will be missing Johns Hopkins for the first time in 42 years this season. After a 9-5 season, the Blue Jays were left out of the NCAA Tournament tonight. But three local teams will be playing next weekend. Maryland is the No. 6 seed and will face Cornell Sunday at 1 p.m. in College Park. Towson, the winner of the CAA tournament, will face No. 3 seed Ohio State Sunday at 3 p.m. in Columbus. Defending national champion Loyola will face Duke in Raleigh, N.C., on Sunday at 5:15 p.m. The lack of quality wins hurt Johns Hopkins this season.

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No. 13 Johns Hopkins wrapped up the regular season with a 9-4 victory over Army Friday night and improved to 9-5. But the program's hopes for a 42nd consecutive NCAA tournament  appearance absorbed another sustained hit that same night. No. 2 Cornell was upended, 14-13, in overtime by No. 12 Princeton in one semifinal of the Ivy League tournament at Cornell in Ithaca, N.Y. The Tigers (9-5) will meet No. 14 Yale (10-4) in Sunday's title game after the Bulldogs defeated No. 18 Penn.

In just a few hours, No. 13 Johns Hopkins will take the field at Michie Stadium in West Point, N.Y., for its regular-season finale against Army. But the Blue Jays' bid for an appearance in its 42nd consecutive NCAA tournament  suffered a blow via the Colonial Athletic Association tournament. Towson upset No. 9 Penn State, 11-10, in Friday's conference tournament final at University Park, Pa. The win secured the Tigers' first CAA tournament championship since 2007, which was also the last time they appeared in the NCAA tournament.

There has been plenty of speculation that Johns Hopkins won't make the NCAA lacrosse tournament, but I don't see that happening. As long as the Blue Jays (8-5) beat Army this weekend, they'll get in. Remember, this is still Hopkins we're talking about here. The Hopkins name is synonymous with the sport. The Blue Jays have some lightweights on the schedule, but they still play Maryland, Navy, Loyola, North Carolina, Syracuse and Princeton. That's a very tough schedule. This might be a "down" year for Hopkins, but the Blue Jays will rebound.

Towson's 11-8 upset of No. 15 Drexel in one semifinal of the Colonial Athletic Association tournament Wednesday evening means the Tigers will meet No. 9 Penn State in the title game on Friday and get a chance to seize the automatic qualifier to the NCAA tournament. The outcome may also have opened the door a little wider for No. 13 Johns Hopkins. The Blue Jays (8-5) are rated 17th in RPI in the latest rankings produced by the NCAA. The Dragons (11-4) are two spots ahead of Johns Hopkins but could slide down when the RPI list is updated this weekend for the NCAA selection committee.