Story and Video by Robin Deehan
Photo by Lauren Williams
SYRACUSE, N.Y. – The No. 1 Syracuse men’s
lacrosse team demolished the back-to-back defending national champion and ACC
rival No. 4 Duke Blue Devils 19 -7 Sunday afternoon in the Carrier Dome to
remain unbeaten.
“I was
really happy with the performance of our team, and I thought our assistant
coaches did a great job of getting our offense and defense ready for what they
were going to see today, and I think we just played well from one end of the
field to the other,” Syracuse head coach John Desko said.
In front of
a rowdy crowd of 11,408 fans, the Orange out-shot the Blue Devils 44 to 35, won
17 of 29 face-offs and converted four of six extra man opportunities in the
Orange win.
“There’s not
much to say here other than we got taken out to the woodshed,” Duke head coach
John Danowski said. “Syracuse was terrific and we have to tip our hat to the
Orange, they were ready, focused and they were great today.”
Defensive Dominance
The Blue
Devil offense is ranked third nationally in scoring offense with an average of 16
goals per game and boasts one of the best players in the country in midfielder Myles
Jones.
Coming into
the game, Jones led the ACC with 45 points on 24 goals and 21 assists and was
ranked fifth in the nation in points-per-game average.
But thanks
to outstanding defensive coverage from Brandon Mullins, Jones was held to no
goals on eight shots, one assist and one ground ball.
The SU
defense also forced Jones to turn the ball over four times, two that came from
big hits by Mullins.
“With a player
like Jones you really have to slide hard to him or you’re going to get knocked over
yourself,” Mullins said. “We knew they had a good midfield and we were going to
slide early to them and I think our game plan was successful.”
The Syracuse
defense held the Blue Devils to just seven goals on the day, allowing only one
in the first half.
“Syracuse
had a really good game plan for our offense, they knew where we like to go with
the ball and our tendencies so they covered everything really well and we got
frustrated not having the ball,” Jones said.
SU keeper
Bobby Wardwell stepped up with 11 saves and allowed only two goals in his 48
minutes between the pipes.
“Bobby
Wardwell was tremendous,” Desko said. “I don’t know how many one-on-one saves
he had today so he really helped keep that one [goal] where it was in the first
half and defensively we slid, we covered and we knew where their people were
going to be when they dodged.”
Offensive Pressure
The
offensive unit dominated the Blue Devil defense with ten different Orange men
finding the back of the cage despite missing one of their best players.
Senior
attackman Randy Staats, who has 15 goals and 11 assists on the season, was sidelined
due to a lower body injury.
After SU
missed its first six shots of the game the Orange finally adjusted to the
absence of Staats when Kevin Rice found Henry Schoonmaker for the score to get
things rolling.
Rice, a
senior attackmen from Skaneateles, had a hand in the next three goals scoring
twice and dishing out an assist to put the Orange up 4-0 halfway through the
first quarter.
“Obviously
when you’re playing without a guy like Randy [Staats] everyone else has to step
up and elevate their game, Randy [Staats] does so many things well for us that
we all needed to bring our A game today,” Rice said.
The Blue
Devils finally got on the board with a minute and a half left to play in the
first quarter when Case Matheis snuck one past Wardwell.
But SU
answered right back when Dylan Donahue found Schoonmaker for the score with
just 10 seconds remaining in the first quarter.
And thanks
to Ben Williams going 13 for 16 at the face-off in the first half the Orange
went on a nine-goal run for that saw scores from Tim Barber, Williams, Nick Weston,
Hakeem Lecky, and Donahue to send the Orange into the locker room with a
commanding 13-1 lead.
“Our offense
really put them [Duke] in a position they didn’t want to be in,"Mullins said. "We got up on
them and some of their offensive guys started taking shots they didn’t really
want, so props to our offensive guys,”
Duke’s best
chance at showcasing its offense came in the fourth quarter when Justin
Guterding, Jack Bruckner and Brian Dailey scored three unanswered goals for the
Blue Devils in a two-minute span.
But the
Orange answered back with three goals of their own from J.T. Forkin, Donahue
and Matt Lane who scored his first career goal to put the Orange up 19-5.
With SU reserves in the game and backup Warren Hill in goal game, the Blue
Devils went on to score the final two goals of the game from Deemer Class
and Tanner Scott but it wasn’t enough and the Orange improved to 7-0, 2-0 ACC while the Blue Devils dropped to (7-2, 0-1 ACC).
Difference Makers
Rice and Camillus
native Donahue lead all players with seven points apiece and even connected
with each other three times for scores.
Schoonmaker chipped
in with three goals and Barber, Lecky, Williams, Joe Gillis, Weston, Forkin and
Lane each had one.
Ben Williams
continued brilliance at the face-off found him winning 14 of the 22 that he
took and on the Tewaaraton Award watch list, given annually to the nation’s top
player.
Up Next
The Orange will
head to South Bend, Indiana for a game next Saturday March 28. It will be the team's first true
road test against No. 3 Notre Dame, which shut our No. 15 Ohio State 9-0 on Sunday.
“A lot of
our big games have been home so we have a real test coming up with Notre Dame
on the road,” Desko said. “To play
outside, who knows what the weather will be like so we are going to try to
practice outside a lot this week so it’s going to be a great challenge, they
[Notre Dame] are going to be fired up.”
The last
time these two teams met was April 27, 2014 when Notre Dame edged Syracuse
15-14 in the ACC Championship game.
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