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The day after a Chapel Hill trip where he got benched for the second time in his two-year tenure as Syracuse’s starting goalie, Jimmy McCool received a birthday gift from his girlfriend.

It was a record player. McCool took it, went to his bedroom down in the basement that his roommates — including Joey Spallina — shoved him in and shut all the lights off. He didn’t need the privilege of sight right now. All he needed was his ears.

He threw on “Deadbeat,” the latest Tame Impala album and turned the record player up as high as it could go. He needed to reset. He didn’t want to think about anything. Especially not the fact that he let in 12 goals on 19 shots — setting season-lows with seven saves and a 36.8% save rate — less than 24 hours ago. He just wanted Kevin Parker’s crooning to distract him from all his worldly troubles.

“Whatever happens in the last game doesn’t matter,” McCool said after Saturday’s win over Virginia, describing his mindset after losing to UNC. “It’s all about just focusing on the next.”

And focused he was. After that 14-9 loss to North Carolina, McCool responded soundly with 16 saves on Virginia’s 25 shots on goal Saturday, good for a remarkable 64.0% save rate. It was a season-high save percentage in games during which McCool faced at least 25 shots on target, and his resurgence proved to be the driving force behind No. 6 SU’s (10-3, 2-1 Atlantic Coast) 14-9 win over No. 9 UVA (7-5, 2-1 ACC) on Saturday.

“He wouldn’t stop making saves, did he?” Virginia head coach Lars Tiffany said postgame. “McCool was amazing.”

That’s exactly what got the Cavaliers in trouble. McCool just wouldn’t stop making saves, and conversely, Virginia goalie Jake Marek — who entered Saturday with save rates north of 55% in his last four games — just couldn’t buy a stop. Marek finished the game with three saves on 17 shots on goal for a paltry 17.6% save rate.

“You just get an imbalance there, right?” Tiffany said. “You got 16 saves at one end and four or five at the other, and that’s tough to overcome against a really good team like Syracuse.”

Early in the contest, it seemed like that imbalance might swing in the Cavaliers’ favor. Ryan Duenkel got UVA started with a goal on its first shot of the game, and SU’s first shot on target — courtesy of Matt McIntee — was kicked away just a few minutes later.

But if you turned off the game at that point, you would’ve been floored by the final score, and the switch in fortunes that transpired almost immediately after that sequence. McCool saved the subsequent six shots on goal that came his way, holding the Cavaliers off the board for the next 18 minutes, and Marek ended up making 66.7% of his total save output in that first quarter.

Virginia’s goalie had just one save over the game’s final three quarters, and his performance was only crueler for the Cavaliers when you contrast it against the impenetrable wall that Syracuse had in its own net. McCool looked like an entirely different player than he did against UNC, back to the McCool of old, and it was never more evident than in the game’s final quarter.

He saved all seven of Virginia’s shots on goal in the frame, and he held the Cavaliers off the board for the game’s final 18 minutes and 43 seconds. Tiffany’s squad — partially due to the heroics of Riley Figueiras and SU’s defense — just couldn’t get off clean looks, and it made McCool’s job easy from that point on.

“They were giving their goalie shots that he could save,” Tiffany said. “And boy, did he.”

Tiffany could feel that it was over. With a little over two minutes left, Michael Meredith — one of Virginia’s close defenders — was just trying things, ripping a shot from deep to provide any sort of injection of life. McCool dropped down, blocked the ball, and watched it squirt out to Truitt Sunderland, who already had two goals on the day.

Even he couldn’t score. The senior Cavalier attack tried dunking the ball over McCool, but his try got snuffed out and swatted away. The possession died hard, and it brought Virginia’s hopes at victory down with it.

The JMA Wireless Dome — filled with the force of nearly 9,000 fans — erupted in cheers after McCool’s sequence of saves. The denouement was upon them. Once McCool cleared the ball, he extended his arms out, shook them, and began yelling at the crowd, matching their energy as best as he could.

“I just wanted to celebrate it with all of (the fans),” McCool said of the play. “Without them, it’s not as fun playing.”

After this win, McCool’s record player is in for a surprise. A couple days ago, he went down to Armory Square, stepped in The Sound Garden and walked out with albums from Pearl Jam and Jim Croce. He couldn’t tell you which one he’s thinking of throwing on. It’s more of a game-time decision, he says, a vibe that he’ll get when he’s in there. You can’t force it.

He’ll go into that basement, turn it up as loud as he can, and just let it play. He might end up drowning out his thoughts again, but it wouldn’t be all that bad if a couple of them end up getting through, and he takes a second to soak this one in. Whatever album it is, Spallina — and whoever else lives in that house — will have to run the risk of overhearing it.

Fine by them. McCool earned it.

“He can blast it as loud as he wants,” Spallina said postgame. “If he keeps playing like that, he can do whatever he wants to do.”

Published on April 11, 2026 at 9:10 pm
Contact Mauricio: mjpalmar@syr.edu | @mpalmarDO