Syracuse men’s lacrosse Orange turns 3-goal halftime lead into decisive 9-goal win
The halftime conversation in the home locker room during Saturday’s contest between Syracuse and Binghamton wasn’t the expected. The reason: After 30 minutes of lacrosse, the defending national champions only led one-win Binghamton by three goals.
At halftime, we were talking about how we were finally facing adversity,’ SU attack Kenny Nims said. ‘We were in a place we didn’t want to be, and we thought we’d have a comfortable lead at halftime, and we didn’t.’
But 30 minutes later, normalcy was restored to the lacrosse universe. Just like several games earlier this season, No. 2 Syracuse (5-1) overcame its slow start to defeat Binghamton (1-6), 13-4, in front of 3,317 Saturday afternoon at the Carrier Dome. Syracuse dominated the action in the second half en route to victory.
‘Instead of putting our heads down and keep playing sloppy the whole game, we came together as a team and did something about it,’ Nims said. ‘We’re just happy we came away with a win today.’
After defeating No. 6 Johns Hopkins on March 14, Syracuse had a week off to prepare for Binghamton, losers to Syracuse in its two previous contests by a combined total of 32-12. And as would be expected, Syracuse scored just 32 seconds into the game on a bounce shot from midfielder Dan Hardy.
But after Hardy’s goal, Syracuse could not find its rhythm. Syracuse continued its recent trend of turning the ball over, which allowed Binghamton to use its slow-down offense to keep the ball from Syracuse’s powerful attack. The Bearcats spread the ball around the goal and continued to take time off the clock.
When Syracuse had chances, such as Hardy’s wide-open look right outside the crease that he fumbled away, the Orange had a hard time converting. Just minutes after Hardy’s miss, attack Stephen Keogh had a one-on-one that he attempted behind his back and missed. But Syracuse would still take a 6-3 lead into the half.
‘We came out extremely flat, and myself being captain of the team, I take responsibility for that,’ Nims said. ‘We definitely didn’t come out the way we wanted to, and we knew we couldn’t overlook them.’
Contributing to Syracuse’s woes was the Bearcats’ defense and goaltender. The Bearcats used a zone defense to try and stymie the Orange. There was always a man in the middle of the defense who would pick up Syracuse defenders who came into the area.
Binghamton head coach Ed Stephenson said his defense wanted to make sure Keogh did not get in the game because he has ‘terrific hands,’ so it short-sticked him and freed up a long stick to play on the Syracuse dodgers on the midfield and their attacks.
‘We just tried to limit the amount of opportunities they had dodging against our short sticks on the perimeters because they are so dangerous in that look,’ Stephenson said.
When Syracuse found shots, Binghamton goalie Larry Kline proved a formidable foe. He stopped seven shots in the first half (12 overall) and kept Binghamton in the game.
‘They don’t want Kenny to have the ball, have guys like Stephen Keogh inside and scoring, so I think they were sacrificing the 10-to-15 yard shot,’ said Scott Kahoe, who scored SU’s last goal of the first half.
In the second half, Syracuse found its rhythm and broke the game open. The flatness that hampered the team in the first half evaporated, as the Orange made crisp passes to get the ball around and score.
Although Binghamton scored the first goal of the half, Syracuse answered with seven straight, started by Keogh and ended with Chris Daniello’s last tally at 2:39 in the fourth quarter.
Syracuse used its ability to beat defenders by coming from the right side of the goal to balloon its lead. Nims started it by coming from the right side, curling in toward the goal and beating Kline to give SU a 9-4 lead. Daniello then followed by coming around the right side for another goal, and then Greg Niewieroski followed suit to extend the lead to 11-4.
‘We made some changes,’ SU head coach John Desko said. ‘They came early to us, and they leave our attackmen behind, so we changed the offense a little bit and were able to get some goals early on to give us a little bit more a lead, and we played more comfortable after, I think.’
Despite emerging victorious, Desko said he was disappointed after the game. After defeating two top-10 teams back to back, the Orange left something to be desired after the victory over the Bearcats. That’s why Nims doesn’t mind having only a two-day break before taking on Hobart Tuesday night (7 p.m., TW 26) at the Dome.
‘We probably could have had a better week of practice,’ Nims said. ‘But as coach said, thank God we got a short week, and we’re going to move ahead to Hobart.’
