What a difference a week (and a change in playing surface) made for the Syracuse Orange, who returned home on Saturday afternoon and raced past the Virginia Cavaliers, 14-9, in another fast-paced game between the ACC rivals.
It wasn’t the highest-scoring affair ever played between the two, but if featured plenty of the traditional hallmarks of the rivalry: tons of up-and-down the field action, transition goals, and quick-strike answers.
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After a very tightly-contested first half, ‘Cuse took control with three quick goals out of halftime that gave them a four-goal lead. UVA would fight back to within two later in the quarter, but the second half belonged to the Orange, who eventually emerged with their third straight win over UVA thanks to strong efforts on both ends of the field.
Jimmy McCool led the charge for SU, helping the team earn the bounce-back win with an individual bounce-back of his own after getting pulled from the North Carolina loss. Jimmy was the difference maker in this game, coming up with 16 massive saves and a .640 save percentage while holding one of the nation’s highest-scoring offenses to single-digits. Right from the start, he was seeing the ball well, reading and reacting with energy and quickness. He made an early statement that he was putting last week in the rear-view mirror and never looked back.
On the other end of the field, his counterpart, Jake Marek, came away with only three stops as the goalie battle played a huge role in determining the outcome of this one.
Also on the other end, Joey Spallina and the Orange offense had a nice comeback from a lackluster effort last weekend, with Joey leading the way with five points (two goals, three assists) as he moved to within one point of Mike Powell’s program record of 307 career points.
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The offensive effort was solid all-around, as SU looked to attack in transition and showed good variety in the half field sets. They initiated from all over the field and got everyone involved. Nine different players scored a goal and 12 players recorded a point. Their movement was constant, they spun the ball around the turf and they exhibited a feel that they could attack from anywhere at any time.
Alongside McCool’s amazing performance between the pipes, it was the offense’s efficiency that helped clinch this win for ‘Cuse.
They fought hard, but the Orange had another struggle of a day on face-offs (10-of-27, .370), and subsequently lost the ground ball battle, 34-24. Following that progression even further, the Cavaliers held a plus-11 shot advantage in this game (46-35), including plus-eight in shots on goal (25-17).
This is, of course, related to the aforementioned performance of the goalies, but the ‘Cuse shooters deserve their flowers for this one. They were actually held to their fewest shots-on-goal of the season (17), but part of that is because they were hitting their spots so well, they didn’t need more shots. SU finished shooting 40 percent for the game, while UVA was held to under 20 percent.
Virginia kicked down the door first in this one, in what looked at the time to be a continuation of the defensive lapses from last week, when Chuck Kuczynski lost track of Ryan Duenkel and McCabe Millon found him for a wide open finish less than 40 seconds into the game. Thankfully, ‘Cuse nipped that in the bud right away.
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The Orange answered on the man-up when Joey found Greg Elijah-Brown for a nice finish in tight space out in front of the crease. Joey grabbed a second straight assist less than 30 second later thanks to a caused turnover off UVA’s face-off win, allowing SU to take advantage of the unsettled situation with Wyatt Hottle drifting into open space on the wing for the finish.
Payton Anderson made it three in a row when he used a roll dodge to get underneath his defender, split a second defender and score out in front of goal. ‘Cuse would take a 3-1 lead into the second.
It got extended a few minutes in, when Kuczynski blocked McCabe Millon’s shot, took a nice outlet pass from Jordan Beck and ran all the way down to rip one home from just inside 15 yards, for another unsettled goal.
The Cavs answered with a transition goal of their own, with Brendan Millon getting some space after the subsequent face-off win and beating Jimmy to end SU’s four-goal run and make it 4-2 with 10:41 on the clock.
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Less than two minutes later, Michael Leo made a gorgeous looping pass over the top of the Cavs’ defense, finding Hottle for his second of the game. Wyatt caught the ball up high and finished it high without bringing the ball down in between. A few minutes later, McCabe Millon found Truitt Sunderland for back-to-back goals within 27 seconds of each other to make it 5-4 ‘Cuse with a little over six minutes in the half.
The teams traded goals the rest of the quarter, starting with Luke Rhoa finishing off some nice, around-the-horn ball movement up top with a lefty hammer. Sunderland then found Ryan Colsey unmarked and cutting towards the crease from up top for an answer.
Joey got his third assist of the first half when Finn Thomson made a nice off-ball cut from X while being marked by a shortie, who lost track of him before Finn made him pay. Colsey then closed out the first half with his second goal as he shot around his defender to beat Jimmy and make it a tight, 7-6 Orange lead at the halftime break.
‘Cuse wasted little time in the third quarter taking control of the proceedings in the immediate aftermath of John Desko’s halftime induction into the Ring of Honor. Luke Rhoa nabbed his second when the Cavs completely lost track of him subbing in, and Finn hit him with a pass from X for the wide open finish.
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A little over a minute later, the Orange got yet another transition goal after a McCool save in which Jimmy dropped an outlet pass right in the bucket to Jake Spallina, who hit Billy Dwan streaking up the field. Dwan face-dodged between defenders and finished slickly for a beauty of a goal. Six seconds later, Johnny Mullen finally cashed in one of his shot attempts to complete the three-goal spurt to open the third and give ‘Cuse their biggest lead to that point, 10-6.
Virginia had another quick answer when McCabe Millon scored 41 seconds later, but Luke Rhoa followed that a couple minutes after that with his hat trick goal after a little shake-n-bake move that led to another lefty rip, this time on the run down the right alley to quickly restore the four-goal advantage.
The Cavs did punch back with a pair of goals that made it as close as it would get, 11-9, with 3:43 left in the third.
But there was too much offense from the Orange, who followed with a beautiful team goal about a minute later. Joey drew a slide as he was trying to back down John Schroter, which he threw to Rhoa, who immediately nailed a diagonal pass to the crease to an open Hottle for his hat trick on an easy finish and a 12-9 win. Late in the third, Joey got his first goal of the game on a nice switch pass from Bogue Hahn, who found him wide open on the backside right at the end of the shot clock to make it 13-9 with a minute left in the quarter.
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There was only one goal in the fourth, and it was scored by Joey for his second goal and fifth point with plenty of open field in transition on a nice twister finish that made it 14-9 with 2:45 remaining. He actually had a chance to tie Powell a little later with an assist, but Leo hit the crossbar on an open net that denied him a share of the record until (presumably) next weekend.
And that chance will come next Saturday, when the Orange host the Colgate Raiders for Senior Day in their final Dome game of the regular season, 5 PM on the ACC Network.