The Syracuse Orange put a stop to a decade and a half of suffering against John Tillman and the Maryland Terrapins on Friday night when they finally got over the hump in an 11-9 victory over the Terps.
In front of an electric crowd of 10,159, ‘Cuse and Maryland competed in a playoff-like atmosphere that very much lived up the the hype of a No. 1 vs. No. 2 battle.
The Orange used a 5-0 run in the first and second quarters to take control of the game in the first half, and then showed their fortitude as they fought off a second half surge from the Terps, counter-punching each and every time they got close to pull out their first win over Maryland since May 2009 and their first win in nine tries against Tillman as their head coach.
Gary Gait and his staff were unafraid to switch things up from a tactical and personnel perspective for this game. They jumbled their lineup around to get the matchups they thought would work best. They flipped Michael Leo and Finn Thomson at attack and midfield. They ran different combinations of midfield lines all night. They bumped Chuck Kuczynski down to close to get a quicker defender on attacker Braden Erksa. They inverted Wyatt Hottle like crazy, especially in the first half. Most if not all of their decisions were rewarded in this effort, and Gait finally got the better of his counterpart.
The Orange were very impressive in the way they took control of the game in the opening 30 minutes. It wouldn’t be accurate to say they dominated, but they were unquestionably in the driver’s seat of the first half proceedings.
It all started on face-offs, where Johnny Mullen was dominating early, winning nine of the game’s first 10 restarts to help SU gain a possession advantage that turned them into the early aggressor.
It didn’t all start out so smoothly, as the Terps jumped out to a 2-1 lead during which time the ‘Cuse offense was struggling to find an early rhythm. Multiple times during those early possessions, Joey Spallina unsuccessfully attempted to dodge from X against Will Schaller, a strategy that Schaller completely shut down in last year’s Final Four.
Unlike last May, this time, the Orange had a counter-proposal, and it was similar to the one they offered up to Notre Dame last season when Joey was being marked by Shawn Lyght. Very quickly, Spallina decided (for the most part) to stop attacking Schaller head on and transitioned to more of an off ball roll. When he did touch it, he was efficient, either moving the ball along quickly to his teammates or initiating quickly after utilizing a pick.
Moving Spallina primarily off-ball took away Schaller’s biggest weapon: his on-ball coverage skills. All of a sudden, he wasn’t able to use his physicality to push Spallina around, and the offense was able to find its flow better. It also meant it was easier for the Orange to get Schaller to switch off of Joey when slides were required due to other player’s dodges, and it really freed Joey up in a much more efficient way.
Joey scored four goals in this game, and really none of them were scored one-on-one against Schaller. Two of them were scored subsequent to effective picks be used, one was scored on a switch to a shortie, and one was scored when SU had a substitution advantage that essentially worked out like an EMO.
So often in recent years, the Orange’s offense has been reduced to forcing late-clock shots after being suffocated by Maryland’s defense. But switching up the strategy and, importantly, winning individual matchups to help break down their defensive structure played huge roles in helping to flip the script in this one.
Maryland’s 2-1 lead was followed by the 5-0 run in which SU started to find their strategic footing in the game. Finn Thomson found Joey during that substitution advantage which he buried in the back of the net to kick off the five-goal run.
Wyatt Hottle played a huge role in this game, particularly during that first half stretch. He scored a pair of goals coming up from X and firing on-the-run as he drifted away from cage for beautiful finishes. The second effort was the middle goal of the five straight, which he squeezed in between Brian Ruppel’s shoulder and the pipe for an exquisite goal.
After his two goals off the dodge, Hottle took advantage of what MD was anticipating by drawing an early slide from Payton Anderson’s defender before hitting ‘Bear’ for an open look right in front of goal to end the 5-0 run and put ‘Cuse up 6-2 early in the second quarter. It was a little less than 10-minute stretch when the Orange were in complete control of the game, looking like they couldn’t be stopped.
During this stretch of offensive execution, the defense was also showing off in the form of intense physicality that really threw the Terps off their game during a time when they were barely seeing possession to begin with because of Mullen. Add into that getting beaten up when they did have the ball, and it was a recipe for a difficult first half for Maryland’s offense.
Speaking of last year’s Notre Dame game, it did at times feel akin to the physicality the Orange put on display against Jake Taylor in last year’s Dome meeting. Not quite as intense as the beating Taylor took, but along the same lines and to similar frustrating results for the opposition.
They did find a little footing in the game in the form of midfielder Elijah Stobaugh, who was dangerous all night attacking his shortie matchups, finishing with a hat trick and four points. In the middle of the second quarter, he scored back-to-back goals in less than two minutes to half the lead at 6-4 SU.
Spallina scored the final goal of the half a few minutes later on a very smart move in which he used a pick to try to evade Schaller. Joey knows that Schaller likes to defend him by going underneath the pick and then coming up on the other side to body him up and away from cage. But knowing this, when Schaller went underneath this particular pick, Joey was ready for it. He was loading up to shoot before he even fully made it around his teammate. By the time Schaller came around the underside of the pick, Joey was already releasing his shot for a goal that put SU up 7-4 at the half.
Unsurprisingly, Maryland did a nice job with their halftime adjustments, starting with the face-offs. After Mullen started the game on fire, winning nine of the first 10, the Terps would go on to win 11 of 14 the rest of the game. Mullen was out of sorts in the second half, losing almost every clamp and false starting a few times. To his credit, he and his wings did continue to fight hard even when losing the clamps, which helped to earn SU a few extra FO wins than they might have. For the game, the restarts finished even at 12-12.
The Terps came out in the second half and scored three quick goals in just over five minutes, interrupted only by a great effort from Michael Leo as he curled around up top and fired cross cage moving to his left for a goal that gave the crowd their first big cheer of the second half. But that 3-1 run helped Maryland seize control of the game and bring it down to a one-goal margin at 8-7 with almost 25 minutes still remaining.
The Orange were once again prepared with an answer in the form of back-to-back goals from Leo and Spallina, both winning matchups and scoring themselves, to put ‘Cuse back in front by three, 10-7. Braden Erksa closed out the third quarter with a goal to make it 10-8 heading to the final frame.
Early in the fourth, Stobaugh continued to kill the SU shorties with another goal to make it a nerve-wracking 10-9 with 13 minutes to go. But the final tally belonged to the Orange on a spectacular effort from Bogue Hahn, who dodged from up top and ripped a perfectly placed laser beam into the lower right hand corner of the cage for a goal that gave SU the separation they needed to feel a little more comfortable seeing the game out.
The game got a little sloppy late, perhaps as the fatigue of a hard-fought February battle took its toll. At one point early in the fourth, the Orange turned it over on three straight possessions that in the past may have doomed them to giving one too many extra chances to Maryland en route to giving the game away.
That was not the case today, as Jimmy McCool and the ‘Cuse defense made all the stops late to keep the Terps at bay. McCool’s stats weren’t exactly eye-popping, but he had a great game. Six of his nine saves came in the second half as Maryland was charging back, and it would have certainly been worse if not for Jimmy coming up with some big stops. He also had a few really important ground ball pick-ups to preserve or regain possession.
The close defense had, I thought, a phenomenal day. Billy Dwan, the ridiculously underrated Riley Figueiras, and Chuck Kuczynski bumping down from LSM were tremendous in slowing Maryland’s super-talented attack and limiting their offense to single-digits.
While various aspects of the game went in and out of success as the night wore on, one thing that never wavered was ‘Cuse’s tenacity and intensity in attacking this game from the outset. That was evident in their physicality on defense, their fervor on the ride and their ground ball play. The Orange crushed the ground ball battle in this one, 36-22. They were plus-four in the first quarter, plus-six in the second and fourth, and minus-two in the third, but overall they set the tone for success through that battle.
Just like we’ve seen them do in waves over the past few years, this game displayed an ever-evolving maturity that previous teams probably don’t have and probably don’t utilize to victory in this game. There were some sloppy moments here and there, but they largely played with a high IQ for the moment and an understanding of what it would take to win. And that goes for the coaching staff, too. The evolution of this program continues to have its touchstone moments, and this is the latest, and possibly the biggest.
The Orange’s reward for this great performance is a six-game road trip, which they’ll begin next weekend when they trek to Cambridge, MA for a 1 PM battle with the Harvard Crimson on Saturday, February 21.
