Syracuse men’s lacrosse: Late flourish helps drive Orange past Hopkins in 13-10 win

It was looking suspect for a while there, but SU found the heroics late to secure their biggest win of the season.

You have to give credit where credit is due.

For a while there, it was looking like the same old story for the Syracuse Orange offense when they come up against a tough, physical opponent. But today, in a huge matchup with rival Johns Hopkins, the Orange found a way to execute when they needed to the most to emerge with their biggest win of the season, 13-10, over the No. 7 ranked Blue Jays.

After coming out the gates fast with three goals in the first six minutes to grab a 3-0 lead, the Orange hit the skids, first allowing a 4-0 retaliation in just three minutes to very quickly erase their early advantage.

The offense just couldn’t find any consistent success against a Hopkins defense that got physical and mucked it up versus a ‘Cuse offense that likes it when things are neat and tidy. SU only mustered a few moments of ingenuity, scoring three goals for most of the first three quarters.

With two minutes to go in the third quarter, they found themselves down 8-6 and lacking for ideas in the midst of another lackluster output in a big game. And that’s when the tides turned. The Orange scored three goals in 51 seconds in those final two minutes of the third, including a beautifully executed hidden ball trick just like the Gait brothers and company used to pull in the 80’s.

Heading to the fourth up 9-8, Hopkins punched back with two of the first three goals to tie it at 10-10 halfway through the final frame. ‘Cuse would have the final say, as they scored 40 seconds after Hopkins tied it up, and then again 30 seconds after that to take a 12-10 lead with 6:19 remaining. They tacked one on final exclamation point and ran the game out for their first Top 20 win of the season.

For much of the afternoon, this was really a defensive slug-fest as both defenses played aggressive, in-your-face and made clean looks at the cage a rarity. It was relatively low scoring, but the ‘Cuse offense did what they could to change that when they scored seven goals in the final 17 minutes after only six in the first 43.

When they found what was working, they were able to efficiently attack their shortie matchups to score or draw slides and create from there with crisp ball movement.

Owen Hiltz (4G, 1A) led the charge with his usual blink-and-you-miss-it passes and some pinpoint shooting from deep. He was also clutch, having a hand in three of the four ‘Cuse goals in the decisive fourth quarter. Joey Spallina (2G, 2A) was largely shut down in his one-on-one matchup with First Team All-American Scott Smith, but still finished with four points including finishing the spectacular hidden ball trick in the third.

Tyler Cordes (2G, 2A), stepping up to second-line midfield in the absences of Finn Thomson, made an incredible impact with a career-high four points that included a nice bounce shot that kick started the critical three-goal run at the end of the third quarter.

Michael Leo (3G) put in a hard days work attacking shortie matchups, and had a hat trick to show for it, while Luke Rhoa (2G) scored a pair, including an insane goal in which the head of his stick dragged against the turf while he was shooting and somehow still scored.

Johnny Mullen (10GB) had a massive impact on this game. After losing the first seven face-offs of the day, which helped fuel the Blue Jays’ 4-0 run in the first quarter, Mullen re-calibrated himself and completely flipped the script to change the possession advantage within the game.

The Orange would win 13 of the final 19 face-offs after falling in that 0-for-7 hole the begin the game, entirely due to Mullen’s efforts. He still has work to do on his post-win decision making, but he was huge today in securing the win.

Jimmy McCool (12SV) had possibly his best day in goal all season given the scale of this game, finishing with 12 saves and three ground balls with a 54.5 save percentage. One-third of his saves came in the fourth quarter as he was keeping the offense’s momentum going on the other end of the field.

The defense had a few breakdowns, but mostly played pretty well in holding Hopkins to 10 goals. Riley Figueiras (2GB, 3CT) stood out with three caused turnovers, and the man-down unit had a great day holding Hopkins to 1-of-5 on the EMO.

The Orange will have a bit of a rest before they return to the JMA Dome field to face the Manhattan Jaspers next week on Tuesday, March 18 at 7 PM on ACC Network Extra.