No. 8 Syracuse’s midfield combines for 9 goals in narrow win at No. 14 Denver
Payton Anderson scored two goals from midfield in Syracuse's 13-12 win over Denver. Led by Luke Rhoa's four tallies, SU's midfield combined for nine goals Monday. Courtesy of SU Athletics
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How do you beat the best defense in Division I? That’s the question Syracuse was forced to answer as it entered Monday’s contest with Denver.
Through six games, the Pioneers had allowed 6.33 goals per game, the best in the nation. Their goalie Grayson Manning was saving a country-best 67.3% of his shots on goal.
On Monday, DU showed its defensive dominance by holding Syracuse’s explosive attacks in check. Packed deep in front of Manning’s net, SU star man Joey Spallina could only muster one goal. Attack Finn Thomson did put away two reactionary blasts, but Michael Leo — deployed on the front line — didn’t score any.
However, quieting the Orange’s attackmen doesn’t mean silencing the whole team. Syracuse can still make noise from other parts of the field. And it did Monday. Be it the sound of a coruscating shot hitting the back of the net. The sound of footsteps running downhill at rapid speed off a faceoff win. The sound of a referee’s whistle signaling a goal is good and returning the ball to the faceoff dot, where SU won 59.2% of draws.
All those notes were audible Monday — and they reverberated out of the Orange’s midfield. Nine of No. 8 Syracuse’s (7-2, Atlantic Coast) 13 goals in its one-goal escape at No. 14 Denver (4-3, Big East) came from midfielders. Luke Rhoa led the way with four tallies in SU’s centered symphony of scoring.
Also in the Orange’s ensemble were two goals from Payton Anderson, plus one each from Wyatt Hottle, Matt McIntee and Tucker Kellogg.
Anderson took center stage to begin. After Thomson forced Manning to cough up an early save, he fed a cutting Anderson, who drilled a shot home. You could hear the whoosh of the ball as it cleanly hit the net.
“Payton’s just working on building confidence,” Gait said of Anderson’s performance postgame. “We know he has a lot of talent, a lot of ability. And today, he had those opportunities, and he made the most of them.”
Rhoa similarly made chances for himself. He unlatched shooting windows, whether it was sending a blistering shot through the sea of defenders in front of the net or twisting free of his marker for an opening.
His first conversion of the night came via the former. The sliding doors were closing as two Pioneer defenders closed a look at the goal. No matter. With the defenders raising their sticks expecting a high shot, Rhoa bounced his bid low to beat Manning to trim SU’s deficit to 3-2.
At the end of the first half — this time with the clock dwindling to under 10 seconds on a man-up opportunity — Rhoa turned a comfortable position for Denver (with SU swinging the ball near the outside of the offensive zone) into a distressing goal with the thwack of his stick. Heading into the break, Syracuse was up 6-5.
Fifty-five seconds out of the half, Rhoa stuck another in the back of Manning’s net. This time, he quickly side-stepped short-stick defensive midfielder Sam Trumble then completed his hat trick with a trademark low tracer bullet that needed a speeding ticket before it hit the net.
More movement — a pirouette spin to shake his marker — liberated Rhoa on the right wing later in the quarter. The acute look at the goal didn’t matter. At this point, you should understand Rhoa could thread a needle with rope — and do it with Flash-like speed and precision.
Did someone say Flash? Well, that’s what Hottle has been for the Orange this season — a wasp after a sip of Cuban coffee buzzing around defenses at a darting speed. The whistle had blown, the ball was on the turf just after Denver had scored to take a 4-3 lead. Hottle snuck between the big men battling for the loose ball. Once he picked it up, he was off like a jackrabbit on a hot date. Blink, and you’d miss the 5-foot-7 midfielder depositing his equalizer home nine seconds after the restart.
Even the freshman McIntee got in on the action. He raced down the left alley and kept his composure to ping his bid into the goal to even the score at 5-5 in a second quarter where SU scored five goals — one fewer than Denver’s per game average heading into Monday.
Want to see more marksman shooting? Look no further than Kellogg. Thomson, a ruthless finisher himself, posits Kellogg is the best shooter on the Orange. It wouldn’t be shocking to see goalies get nervous each time he winds up. For the second straight game, the junior put his name on the scoresheet. Monday, it was with a crackling shot part of a 5-0 Syracuse run. It was also the fulfillment of a halftime prediction minutes before, Gait said.
“Tucker’s awesome,” Gait said postgame. “He’s a great teammate. He’s been waiting to get an opportunity, and last game, playing Air Force, he stepped up big time, scored a couple goals, got an assist and earned the opportunity to be out there today.”
Anderson completed the Orange’s five goal run with a backdown and finish — a move he mastered after years working out with his father.
“We were pumped for (Anderson), fired up for him, and hopefully that makes us deeper and stronger as we move through the season,” Gait said.
The Syracuse midfield’s nine-song concert was complete. The 3,000+ who bought tickets to see the game at Peter Barton Lacrosse Stadium and paying subscribers who watched the Altitude Sports were likely expecting two top-10 defenses to play a low-scoring game. That expectation was ameliorated.
Not by SU’s attack. But by its midfield. It sidestepped, outran and then lit up Denver’s preeminent defense from 15 or more yards.
Gait said it best: As the Orange end their six-game road trip and enter ACC play, that midfield depth will be essential. Not just the depth they’re shooting from against low-block defenses. Not just the depth of sound they produce when they tattoo a ball into the back of the net. But the depth his team has to produce offense from secondary positions — and, on top of that, secondary players in those spots.
That’s a tune Syracuse hopes to listen to all the way back home from Denver, and all the way to Charlottesville on Memorial Day for the national championship.
