MLAX : Syracuse seniors tie all-time school wins record in victory against Rutgers
EAST HARTFORD, Conn. — With six minutes remaining, John Galloway joined fellow seniors Stephen Keogh and Jovan Miller on the sideline. They had already played their way to a nine-goal lead.
After exiting the field of play onto Syracuse’s portion of the sideline, Galloway jumped up briefly onto the Orange bench where Keogh was perched. Seconds later he hopped down and shared an embrace with Miller.
The three seniors — though quick to change the subject during postgame interviews — were minutes away from tying the school record for most wins over a four-year period with their 57th as a class.
Still, they didn’t want to talk about what this victory meant.
‘It doesn’t really matter, to be honest with you,’ said the midfielder Miller. ‘It’s not the end of the season yet, so we’ll think about it after the season is over.’
Saturday’s 12-2 throttling of Rutgers put the 2011 bunch into a tie with the Class of 1986.
That group won the 1983 national championship as freshmen — just like this class did in 2008.
But currently ranked No. 4 in the country isn’t sitting well with these freshmen. Since the humbling 11-6 loss to Cornell on April 12, the team has scored 38 goals while allowing only 12 in three consecutive wins.
And up next is a date with Notre Dame, the No. 1 team in the country. So for now, all thoughts are on that game. The chances to reflect will come later.
‘The No. 1 team is coming to town next week,’ Galloway said. ‘That’s all we’re focused on.’
First goals in Orange
JoJo Marasco stole the highlight, but the goal was a bigger moment for Collin Donahue.
A Syracuse turnover in the offensive zone gave Rutgers a chance to close SU’s lead with less than a minute to play in the first half. Scarlet Knight defender Jacob Fradkin tried restarting the play with a long pass up field, but Marasco had the ball in his sights.
He ran back underneath the pass on the left side of the field, spinning his head around and trying to find it before reaching his stick up blindly with his right hand. Fortunately for the Orange, the ball landed perfectly in the sophomore’s stick.
‘I saw the ball going and just put my stick up there and it went in,’ Marasco said.
After the one-handed interception, he turned and dished it to Donahue, who was standing all alone seven yards away from the goal. The junior, who transferred from Rutgers last year, fired a shot into the back of the net for his first goal as a member of the Orange, giving SU a 6-1 lead heading into halftime.
Donahue, coming off the bench as Syracuse’s fourth attack due to Tim Desko’s injury, would add his second Orange goal with the game well in hand off a feed from freshman Billy Ward.
But Donahue wasn’t the only Syracuse player to tally his first goal with the Orange.
After assisting on the junior’s second tally, Ward added his first career goal to close out the scoring. The two points were the first this year for the freshman in limited playing time.
‘When we have guys like that that can step in, be it a fourth attackman that comes in and scores two goals,’ long-stick midfielder Joel White said, ‘I think that’s just really helping us out and really shows the depth of our team.’
Bad weather, sloppy play
As Rutgers attack Duncan Clancy carried the ball into the box, White stepped in front of him to defend. Clancy tried to turn back and pass the ball off to a teammate, but his cleats betrayed him.
His feet slid out from underneath him, the ball popped out of his stick and White scooped it up to start the break the other way.
That was the most direct effect the bad weather had on the action Saturday, but both teams said the wetness caused some problems throughout the day. The teams combined for 41 turnovers, Rutgers with 24 of them.
‘We know the ball is going to bounce everywhere,’ White said of the play in the conditions. ‘So I think something our defense does is chase the ball wherever it goes. We look forward to that kind of stuff.’
