The Syracuse Orange put together one good half of lacrosse on Saturday afternoon at Arlotta Stadium in their regular season finale.
And then the second half happened.
Holding an 8-7 halftime lead after a first half of solid teamwork and invention on offense, the Orange had the game taken to them by a Notre Dame team that came out with purpose after the halftime break. The Irish defense took hold of the proceedings, allowing for separate 5-0 and 4-0 runs that put the game away. In total, ‘Cuse got outscored
9-3 in the second half and fell to ND, 16-11, to finish the regular season at 11-4 and 2-2 in the ACC.
There was so much good from the offense in the first half in which SU had seven assists on eight goals as the teamwork and movement were operating at a premium. They matched the number of goals-against that ND averages per game in the opening 30 minutes, but the Irish’s locker room adjustments changed the script. They returned to form by suffocating scoring chances, as the Orange went from running the show to forcing passes and shots to try and stay close in the second half.
The defense had a rough one all the way around. Jimmy McCool did everything he could, making 18 saves with a .529 save percentage and three ground balls. He came away with 11 of those in the second half while under a barrage of shots and a Notre Dame run, but the Irish tally could have been a lot worse if not for a big effort from Jimmy, whose going to have quite a few welts this week after this one.
His defense didn’t do him a ton of favors, as ‘Cuse’s shorties were once again exposed while trying to defend the dodge, getting beaten throughout the game with pretty much no personnel exceptions. The poles weren’t exempt from that, at times, either as the majority of ND’s goals came from winning matchups off the dodge. It was also a rough day defending the two-man game, with a handful of goals coming off communication issues with who was covering where and when or if switches were happening.
In total, the Irish out-shot the Orange 52-35, including 14 more shots on goal. Face-offs weren’t a disaster, but ND won that battle, 18-13, and won the GB battle, 39-30. ‘Cuse went 16-for-20 on clears. That’s just too many negatives to overcome when playing the No. 1 team in the country.
The Irish opened the day’s scoring thanks to a miscommunication in the two-man between Billy Dwan and a shortie at GLE that allowed Luke Miller to get free for a goal.
The Orange answered less than 30 seconds later when Joey Spallina, much like he did in the matchup last season, sprung free while playing off-ball from Shawn Lyght. Joey ghosted away from Lyght in the middle of the field and took a nice pass from Matt McIntee and fired it home in tight space with Lyght bearing down on him for SU’s first tally of the day.
Chuck Kuczynski made his presence known in transition with an absolute rocket launcher of a goal from straight on and deep when nobody marked him as he came all the way down the field after a McCool save. But one either side of Kuczynski’s juice goal, ND scored a pair of goals that were both the result of Jake Spallina getting beaten off the dodge.
After the second of those goals, ‘Cuse answered within a minute with a beautiful connection from Wyatt Hottle to Payton Anderson. Hottle dodged up from GLE on the right side and threaded a pass between multiple defenders to Bear in the middle, who proceeded to evade on-rushing defenders and finish calmly out in front of the crease for a goal that tied the game, 3-3, in a very action-packed first eight-plus minutes of the game.
Notre Dame re-took the lead a few minutes later when Dante Bowen got caught up in a pick at X and couldn’t recover in time as Max Busenkell came above GLE and slotted it past Jimmy to give the Irish a 4-3 lead that they’d take into the second quarter.
Luke Miller got his second of the game on a transition goal after a bad-angle shot from Hottle on the other end for the first two-goal lead of the game just over a minute into the second, but that’s when ‘Cuse turned in their best stretch of the day.
Joey started the run with an EMO goal that he finished just above right-side GLE after the defense backed off him expecting a pass.
That was followed a minute later by the best bit of teamwork on the day. Luke Rhoa initiated on a left-wing dodge down towards GLE, throwing a swim move and hiding his stick from a trail check, before dumping a pass down to Michael Leo at X. Leo surveyed and threw a fantastic diagonal, cross-cage pass that found Wyatt Hottle on the right wing. Hottle threw a one-more pass to Bear, who side-arm fired one low to beat Thomas Ricciardelli for his second and a beautiful sequence to beat the Irish defense.
A few minutes later, Leo threw another great pass across the face of goal that somehow was too quick for Ricciardelli to catch up to, and Finn Thomson caught it on the backside for the goal. One minute after that, Joey got a hat trick in a rare instance of actually attacking Shawn Lyght off the dodge. Joey dodged from X, came up above left-side GLE, and calmly rolled back towards the goal to finish off SU’s 4-0 run and put them in their best position of the day at 7-5 with 6:48 remaining in the first half.
ND eventually answered with two goals in 39 seconds to tie the game, before Joey found Bear making an off-ball cut up from X on the back end of more good ball movement for his own hat trick and the final goal of the half that sent the Orange into the locker room up, 8-7.
The Irish took the reins from there, coming out of the gates in lockdown mode while not wasting any time in re-taking the lead. Will Maheras opened the half by blowing past Tyler McCarthy and scoring 25 seconds in to tie it back up. A couple minutes later, SU had another failed clear which resulted in Dylan Faison beating Dante Bowen to give ND a lead back that they would never relinquish.
The run was just getting started, as Jordan Beck got beaten from X for a goal, Bowen got beaten once more from X, and Matt Jeffery left Vincent Bolognino in the dust to complete a 5-0 Irish run that made it 12-8 and took up roughly the first 13 minutes of the third quarter while the Orange offense flailed when they did get their chances.
In the late third and early fourth, ‘Cuse gave it one more run to make a game of it, which they briefly did. With 85 seconds left in the third, Bear just plowed through a shortie up top and scored his team-leading fourth goal of the game as a reminder of why in the heck doesn’t Bear get to initiate more in this offense? The dude has an unstoppable combination of physical attributes and stick skills.
With 33 seconds left in the third, Leo found Finn in the middle on an EMO that the Orange scored on in eight seconds to make it 12-10 heading to the fourth.
Just over a minute into the fourth, Hottle dodged down the alley and caught Ricciardelli leaning away from the near pipe at just the right time, throwing it home to complete a 3-0 run that took less than three minutes and made it 12-11 ND with 13:48 on the clock.
Unfortunately, it would be SU’s final goal of the game as the Irish scored the final four tallies to win by five, including another two-man situation that gave the Orange issues and an open net goal with just over a minute that led to multiple instances of pushing, shoving, and penalties as the clock wound down.
In the end, the Orange showed they were capable of hanging with the No. 1 team at times, but failed to put it together consistently and made way too many errors of all types in order to pull the big road win.
Things will not get any easier next week, when ‘Cuse heads for Charlotte and the ACC Tournament as the No. 3 seed to face the No. 2 seed North Carolina Tar Heels, who got trounced by Duke today. That matchup is set for Friday, May 1 at 8 PM on the ACC Network.
