The Syracuse Orange got their season off to a promising, if somewhat uneven, start on Sunday when they defeated the No. 17 Boston University Terriers
, 13-6, inside the JMA Dome.With one game in the books, it is officially overreaction week as we anticipate the rest of the season based off one game against one opponent. So let’s not waste any more time and get right to it!
Offensive depth and threat
Through a whole 60 minutes, we saw an offense that struggled with efficiency (17 turnovers, 27 shot percent) but had plenty of exciting
moments, as well.
The thing that I’m the most intrigued by is that this group looks to have the potential to go a little deeper with their genuine threats to a defense than last year, specifically in regards to the second midfield line. The losses of Owen Hiltz and Sammy English are huge to say the least for this offense, and it will likely require a whole handful of players to replace their production.
But inserting Payton Anderson into the starting lineup vastly increases the athleticism and dodging ability of this offense. And the danger factor of the second midfield looks like it has a chance to level up in a big way this season after the debuts of Bogue Hahn and Matt McIntee alongside Wyatt Hottle returning.
We’ve known about Hottle’s quickness for a couple years already, but that is a trio that looks like it has some serious speed and wiggle to it, and it paid dividends with three points from Hottle and a beautifully executed first-career goal from Hahn on Sunday. McIntee didn’t score, but he had a few effective alley dodges that he just couldn’t finish off on the run.
Replacing Hiltz and English will be daunting, but if some of these youngsters are ready to step up with consistency, we may be looking at a different version of the Orange offense this year. Although we might want to wait until the Maryland game before we go shouting that from the rooftops.
Defensive questions answered?
Probably the biggest single question about this roster entering Sunday centered around the personnel of the rope unit, most especially the group of shorties.
On Sunday, the Orange defense put together a very solid effort that held the Terriers to six goals on 17 percent shooting while committing 18 turnovers. They also held them to a mid-game 15-minute scoring drought, as well as a 17 minute scoring drought to end the game.
While Jimmy McCool, Billy Dwan and Riley Figueiras all had quite a lot to do with BU’s offensive performance, the defensive midfield certainly did their part pitching in alongside.
The shorties had a good game overall, although there were a few miscues sprinkled in to keep things honest. But this was our first chance to see the position group with the most uncertainty coming into the season, and I thought they did well.
Dante Bowen played a strong, physical game in his first appearance in Orange, while Jayden Kittelberger held serve in the first game of his college career. Jake Spallina had a very active game with four ground balls and a caused turnover, and Ryder Ochoa got beaten for the first BU goal of the game, but settled in after that. The four main SSDMs combined for six ground balls and three caused turnovers, and mostly solid defense overall.
At LSM, Chuck Kuczyński picked up right where he left off as a physical backup last year, only this time as the starter, while Vincent Bolognino did a nice job spelling him as the backup with a pole back in his grasp after moving to shortie late last year.
Bigger tests will be forthcoming, but the year got started off beautifully for a defense with a lot of new faces in new places in their first game together.
Replacing Sammy
For a guy who played first-line offensive midfield, top-line wing on face-offs, tracked back on defense and shortie on man-down, Sammy English was always going to need a squadron of players to replace him. That’s what happens when you’re one of the best all-around players in the game.
Sunday gave us our first glimpse at how exactly that would go down. We saw Tyler McCarthy take up his spot on offensive midfield, as well as one of the wing options on face-offs due to his solid abilities in the ground ball game, which including scooping up four against BU. Wyatt Hottle and Jake Spallina also factored into the wing conversation, and did nicely as Spallina also nabbed four GBs.
On defense, we saw a mix of guys tracking back beyond the main shortie rotation. The most frequent occurrence that I noticed back there was Hottle, who ended up playing a lot of shifts at shortie after taking up the wing on restarts.
I was also intrigued to see Hottle as the choice to replace Sammy as the shortie on the man-down unit. I would never have thought that myself, but I guess they like his quickness as a recovery weapon for all the rotations required when you have one less man on the field.
It’ll be interesting to see how replacing Sammy evolves over the course of the season, but we’ve already got a handful of middies in the mix to pick up all his vacated responsibilities.
Face-offs
Johnny Mullen is one of the best face-off men in the country. That much has been quite clear for the better part of a year now, and he reinforced that again on Sunday with his 14-of-19 performance at the dot (73.7 percent), his eight ground balls and his down-main-street goal in the third quarter.
But what has also become apparent for the better part of the last year is that while the Orange know exactly where they stand when Mullen lines up for a restart, they do not have much of an answer for when he doesn’t.
Last year, while Mullen was achieving All-American status with his 63 percent win rate, all other ’Cuse FOGOs limped to a 33 percent rate (22-of-66). Today, Mullen false started three times and had to miss three subsequent draws. Drew Angelo came in to take those draws, lost all three, and didn’t get particularly close to winning any of them.
In very limited chances, non-Mullen FOGOs have put up bad numbers in the last year and one game. When he doesn’t draw, it’s a borderline automatic loss for SU.
It’s not necessarily the biggest concern in the world, and I certainly don’t want to bury Angelo after three face-offs in 2026, but I do think it is a concern because you never know when a false start will happen and you might need a win during the subsequent face-off of a tight game.
True freshman John Olenik put up excellent numbers in high school, but he’s a little undersized so I’m not sure he can make an immediate impact the way Mullen did when he was a freshman backing-up Mason Kohn.
With only three FOGOs on the roster, there may not be much to do other than hope Mullen takes as many face-offs as possible or that one of the backups is able to find a little more success than last year. I don’t want to seem like I’m sounding the alarm too much here, but I certainly think it’s worth keeping an eye on moving forward.
The Orange are back in the Dome for game number two this Saturday, February 7 at 12 PM against the Saint Joseph’s Hawks on ACC Network Extra.
