MLAX : Maltz tallies career high with 6 goals; Dattilo owns faceoff battle for Hobart
GENEVA, N.Y. – Derek Maltz refused to take all of the credit. Instead, he choose to include his teammates in his career night. Syracuse’s offense had a stellar 10-goal first half, with Maltz providing five of them.
To Maltz, it was the offense as a whole that deserved the credit.
‘As an entire offense, we just like to build off practice, build off games,’ Maltz said. ‘The way we played against Rutgers, we just wanted to keep it rolling. We did a great job in the first half. First quarter, we did a great job moving the ball. It was just a great all-around effort by our offense.’
The Orange attack scored a career-high six goals in the Orange’s 13-12 win over Hobart on Tuesday at Boswell Field, just three days after a four-goal performance against Rutgers. Maltz became the first Syracuse player to score six goals in a game since Kenny Nims accomplished the feat in 2008 against Villanova. He’s also the first Orange player to score at least five times in a game since attack Tim Desko scored five last season against Virginia.
Maltz positioned himself perfectly for each of his goals. He scored in transition just more than seven minutes into the game and scored on a feed from JoJo Marasco in a settled situation a minute later.
At the 12:58 mark of the second quarter, Kevin Drew scooped up the ground ball off a faceoff, ran the ball toward the Statesmen goal and found Maltz alone to the left of the cage. The attack took the feed and flipped it into the net.
He was at nearly the same place with 8:38 left. Alone, next to the cage, Marasco found him once again. Head coach John Desko said SU’s scorers continued to try to find Maltz, and more often than not, they did.
‘We were looking to Derek. He was getting open,’ Desko said. ‘And in different ways, too. He got goals in the man-up, he got goals in fast breaks, he got goals in settled situations, so we were looking to him and he got open.’
All season, Maltz has been superb as a replacement for Syracuse’s former crease attack Stephen Keogh.
Maltz continued to fool Hobart goaltender Peter Zonino, who repeatedly made superb saves to keep his team in the game.
Said Desko: ‘He was one of the few guys that was able to finish against this goaltender tonight.’
Dattilo dominates Syracuse in the X
Brian Megill knew it was going to be a tall task to try and command the faceoff X against Hobart.
The Statesmen boast the nation’s best faceoff specialist in the country, Bobby Dattilo, who entered the game winning two of every three draws he took to date. Dattilo displayed his proficiency against Syracuse on Tuesday, winning 18-of-28 draws. He helped Hobart control the possession in the second half and nearly willed the Statesmen to victory.
‘My hat goes off to No. 36. He’s the best (faceoff specialist) in the country,’ Megill said. ‘We knew that coming in, and we tried to get a plan to battle him, and I think we did for a little bit there in the fourth and a little in the second. But he knows what to do and how to counter what we do.’
The Orange used a steady rotation on faceoffs, utilizing five different players to try and disrupt Dattilo. Syracuse continued to struggle, like it has all season. Chris Daddio and Megill took more than half of the Orange’s draws, but went a combined 6-of-16.
The performance erased the momentum in the X that the Orange built with a strong game against Rutgers. Syracuse won 7-of-7 faceoffs in the third quarter Saturday and 17-of-26 for the game against the Scarlet Knights.
Even with SU’s struggles Tuesday, though, Desko felt that Syracuse did just enough at the X against the top player in the country at the position to emerge victorious.
Said Desko: ‘To come out of here with the faceoffs the way they went and the goaltender, to come out of here with a win is not a bad thing for us.’
