Previewing No. 5 Syracuse men’s lacrosse’s matchup vs. No. 6 Duke
Syracuse men’s lacrosse opens its Atlantic Coast Conference slate against No. 6 Duke, which has won its first eight games. Eli Schwartz | Asst. Photo Editor
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Ten games in, Syracuse’s conference slate is finally set to begin.
SU tested itself out the gate, opening its season by playing nine teams ranked in Inside Lacrosse’s most recent Top 20 Poll, winning seven of those matchups. After a six-game road trip that began with two losses to Ivy League foes but ended with a four-game winning streak, the Orange returned to the JMA Wireless Dome with an emphatic 18-12 victory over then-No. 13 Georgetown.
SU is ready to take on the best the Atlantic Coast Conference has to offer. That quest begins Saturday in the Dome, against a formidable Duke squad that’s yet to lose a game.
Here’s everything to know about No. 5 Syracuse (8-2, ACC) before its ACC opener against No. 6 Duke (8-0, ACC) Saturday:
All-time series
Syracuse leads 16-11.
Last time they played
Though last season was full of pivotal wins for the Orange, arguably the most important one came against the Blue Devils on May 4. In Charlotte, North Carolina, with the ACC Championship and an automatic NCAA Tournament bid on the line, Syracuse raced out to a 5-3 halftime lead and held onto it in the second half.
Owen Hiltz, Finn Thomson and Payton Anderson each scored braces for SU. After Anderson put the Orange up 9-6 with roughly 11 minutes to play, Liam Kershis and Max Sloat scored two straight goals to bring Duke within one. But Syracuse held on for the final 61 seconds and walked out of Charlotte with an ACC Championship title.
The Blue Devils report
Duke has yet to beat an elite team convincingly. No one knows if they’ll ever do so.
Eight straight wins are mightily impressive at face value, but when you dig into the wins the Blue Devils have, it really isn’t. Duke has beaten Bellarmine, Utah, Vermont, Jacksonville, Saint Joseph’s, Air Force, Providence and Denver. Only two of those teams — St. Joe’s and Denver — were ranked in Inside Lacrosse’s latest poll, and SU has defeated both of them.
Try to argue Syracuse wouldn’t be undefeated with that slate. Now give up, because you can’t. The Orange defeated St. Joe’s 20-2 when the Hawks had the misfortune of rolling into the JMA Wireless Dome, and snuck past Denver 13-12 when they trekked out to Colorado.
And those are the two best teams on Duke’s resume. Just imagine what SU could do to some of the cellar-dwellers the Blue Devils scheduled.
Shortstick defensive midfielder Aidan Maguire is still wreaking havoc for Duke, while Sloat and Benn Johnston have been firing on all cylinders with 19 and 27 goals, respectively. Much of the core that brought the Blue Devils to last year’s ACC Championship is still intact.
But it’s impossible to accurately judge them until they’ve been truly battle-tested.
How Syracuse beats Duke
The script was laid out bare for SU last week. Denver had Duke by the throat. The Pioneers went up 4-0 in the first quarter and entered the second frame holding all the momentum with the chance to put the game out of reach for the Blue Devils.
Then Cal Girard got on the board. And Johnston. And Tomas Delgado. And four more tallies after that. Just as Denver thought it had a chance at spoiling Duke’s undefeated record, the Blue Devils stormed back with a seven-goal run to reclaim control of the contest.
Denver never got it back and lost 8-7. Syracuse can’t suffer the same fate.
Lacrosse is a game of runs, as Gary Gait pointed out when SU suffered its first loss to Harvard back in February, and whichever team has the “killshot” usually ends up winning. In this case, the Orange have to make sure they’re the last ones standing. Duke isn’t the highest-scoring team out there, but the Blue Devils can take over games if you don’t put them away.
Stat to know: 1
That represents the number of games in which Duke has conceded a double-digit scoring total to its opponent. It was a 16-10 win over Jacksonville on Feb. 21.
Granted, as previously mentioned, the Blue Devils’ schedule is far from the strongest. That’s why they’re undefeated and still can’t crack the nation’s top five. But no matter who’s in front of it, holding teams to single-digits so consistently is a testament to Duke’s defensive excellence, and may be a bad omen for the Orange.
Player to watch: Kyle Colsey, attack/midfield, No. 2
Kyle Colsey’s probably not a familiar name to most Syracuse fans. The redshirt freshman wasn’t at Duke last season; he was at Virginia, a school where he didn’t play a single game after suffering a season-ending injury.
His dad might be, though. Roy Colsey was a three-time First Team All-American at SU back in the 1980s, and he’s a US Lacrosse Hall of Fame inductee. It might run in the family, because Kyle’s got game, too. After transferring to Duke this past offseason, he’s emerged as a top option for the Blue Devils, ranking second on the team in goals (20) and points (27).
