Syracuse men’s lacrosse: Spallina punishes Vermont, Orange dominate first half en route to 13-5 win

‘Cuse ran away early and cruised to victory on a Friday night in the Dome.

On Friday night in the JMA Dome, the Syracuse Orange took down the Vermont Catamounts, 13-5, on the back of a dominant first half to improve to 2-0 on the season.

It was a Joey Spallina kind of night, as No. 22 spurred the Orange to the win in part one of their three-games-in-nine days stretch. Spallina tied his career high with 10 points on five goals and five assists, directly playing a part in 10 of SU’s 13 tallies.

‘Cuse controlled the pace of play in the first half. Despite an even split on face-offs, the Orange took advantage of their chances, scored in bunches and fully put the clamps down on the Vermont offense to take over the game.

After scoring the first 10 goals against Jacksonville, Gary Gait’s side scored the first six against Vermont before a pole goal stopped the run in the first quarter. But the second quarter was all Orange to the tune of a 4-0 run to close the half at 10-1.

SU’s defense was really spectacular, barely giving UVM a sniff of cage, especially in the first half in which they forced 12 turnovers while only giving up four shots on goal. They turned them over consistently enough to get the ball right back to a ‘Cuse offense that was getting the job done on a very poor defensive first half from the visitors in their first game of the season.

The Catamounts spent much of the first half allowing Spallina to play hangman from X, operating with lots of space and multiple times being guarded by a short-stick. If you allow Joey Spallina to be that comfortable with that much space to do his thing, he crushes you every time. Thus, Spallina scored or assisted on eight of the 10 first half goals.

After establishing their commanding halftime lead, the Orange played a pretty messy second half in which they were outscored 4-3 thanks in large part to a Herculean effort from substitute goalie Ryan Daly, who made 18 saves after starter Jake Dandrea got hurt on the first SU goal. Daly turned away chance after chance, holding ‘Cuse to three second half tallies and only one in the final 26 minutes of the game.

It didn’t matter thanks to that first half. Sometimes you just get up big early and cruise from there.

This was the second straight game in which the defense held the opponent to five total goals. So far this season, ‘Cuse’s opponents have 44 turnovers (24 caused) and 33 shots on goal, leading to a grand total of 10 goals. They’ve played 120 minutes of shutdown lacrosse thus far.

Jimmy McCool was great in his second start, making 11 saves, eight of which came after the break. He played a bigger role in this game, making a handful of really nice saves and finishing with a .688 save percentage.

Elsewhere on defense, Chuck Kuczynski had a big game with three ground balls and four caused turnovers, as did RIT transfer Michael Grace with three ground balls and two caused turnovers.

Sammy English didn’t do much on offense with one assist and 0-for-5 shooting, but he did his typical all-around impact with a pair of ground balls and caused turnovers, as well as playing a big role on the man-down unit and the clearing game.

The offense had a relatively quiet night, especially with Spallina doing the bulk of the scoring. Owen Hiltz had four points with two of each, and Finn Thomson and Trey Deere each found the net twice.

The moment of the game was easily a connection between Hiltz and Thomson in which Finn finished with his contribution for goal of the year candidate, a whirling, between-the-legs shot while running away from the cage:

Just a reminder of what this offense is capable of as both a unit and individually.

Both specialist units had strong games with ‘Cuse’s man-up converting both of their opportunities, while the man-down unit was really good on a workhorse kind of a night, holding the Catamounts to 1-of-6 on their chances.

Johnny Mullen and the face-off unit had an inconsistent night, losing the battle 9-12 to UVM. Mullen himself went 8-of-16, while backup Johnny Richiusa went 1-of-5.

Additionally, the Orange committed eight penalties in a sloppy effort in that department. They got bailed out by the man-down unit, but that’s obviously way too many penalties.

Gait took the starters out midway through the fourth quarter, perhaps a little later than we would have liked given the quick turnaround to ‘Cuse’s Monday evening game against the Towson Tigers in the Dome. Towson, who lost a one-goal game to Hopkins on Tuesday, will have three extra days of rest coming into the game.

The Orange and Tigers will meet in a rematch of last year’s NCAA Tournament First Round game on Monday, February 10 at 5 PM on ACC Network Extra.