Daddio dominates face-offs, offense excels in 19-6 win over Colgate

Story by Ethan Joyce

Photos by Jillian Thaw

For the last month, much has been made of Chris Daddio’s transformation as a faceoff specialist. After switching his stance, the senior’s face-off win rate is 55 percent in his last seven games.

Billy Ward lines up against a Colgate attacker

But in today’s regular-season finale against Colgate, Daddio put on a clinic. He won 10 of the 15 first-half face-offs against Alex Kinnealey, who ranks eighth in the nation with a 62.8 percent win rate.

His success led to many scoring attacks for the Orange, who went on to trounce the Red Raiders in a 19-6 win.

“I feel pretty good, and I am getting more and more comfortable [in face-offs]” Daddio said. “I am making better decisions throughout with the ball.

“You are not going to win it until you can get the attack involved, and I think I am getting more comfortable with the ball.”

For Daddio, it was special to preform so well on Senior Day, where the team’s nine seniors were honored before the game.

“It was a good feeling,” Daddio said. “A lot of times it can be kind of a trap game . . . so it was nice to get all the seniors out their and everyone played well.”

Syracuse caused problems for Colgate all-game long.

Kevin Rice, Randy Staats and Dylan Donahue lead Syracuse’s offensive attack. The three combined for nine goals and seven assists, giving each player at least 30 goals on the season—Rice, Staats and Donahue have 36, 33 and 32 goals, respectively.

Rice said that he was excited about where the team is right now, both offensively and defensively.

“I think we have been playing well,” Rice said. “Obviously, we wanted to win last weekend and take home the first ACC championship, but I think there are a lot of good things we could take away from that game.

“But like coach said, last week was a tough week . . . so I think the fact that we came out focused and executed well is a positive sign going forward.”

Head coach John Desko felt confident about the way the Orange played today, and he saw improvement from last week.

“The only thing that I was really concerned about is that we gave up a couple balls in the ACC tournament,” Desko said. “And I thought that happened a lot due to our communication.

“But I thought that was all fixed today.”

An Orange attacker rushes the net

For Colgate, it was another frustrating day on the offensive side. The Red Raiders scored only six goals today, which ties the team’s lowest output this season. The team has the ninth-worst offensive attack in the nation, scoring on 8.6 points per game.

Redshirt-juniors Hakeem Lecky and Henry Schoonmaker each scored two goals for Syracuse, giving them 14 and 13 goals on the season.

With the win, Syracuse’s all-time record against Colgate is 44-11-1.

The Orange now enter the NCAA Tournament as the No. 2 seed. The team will play the winner of the Bryant/Siena game on May 11 at 7:30 p.m.

Post-game video courtesy of Cuse.com.