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It had all the makings of a trap game. Syracuse, coming off one of its worst performances of the season, against a Virginia squad that enters Saturday riding hotter than it has all year.

After starting the year with four losses in eight games, the Cavaliers knocked off Notre Dame and Duke in consecutive weeks, two Atlantic Coast Conference foes that were widely considered to be among college lacrosse’s elite.

“They just kind of put it together,” SU head coach Gary Gait said of Virginia on Thursday. “They’re feeling pretty good about where they’re at right now, so it’s gonna be a battle.”

The Orange, on the other hand, could not put it together against North Carolina. They entered Saturday coming off a 14-9 road loss to the Tar Heels, where Joey Spallina was held pointless and Jimmy McCool was benched for just the second time in his career. Back in the JMA Wireless Dome, UVA represented a chance at redemption, and it’s an opportunity SU took full advantage of Saturday.

Here’s some observations from No. 6 Syracuse’s (10-3, 2-1 ACC) 14-9 win over No. 9 Virginia (7-5, 2-1 ACC):

Mullen’s malaise

At Thursday’s media availability, Gait was again asked about John Mullen’s play, as he’s so often been asked at various points throughout this season. It has to be tiring at this point.

This question, in particular, asked Gait to evaluate Mullen’s performance against star North Carolina faceoff specialist Brady Wambach. It wasn’t great. The junior won just seven of the 21 clashes he took against the Tar Heels, good for a season-worst 33.3% win rate. Gait didn’t have much to say about it.

“It was a tough one for John,” he said Thursday. “He’s going to continue, he’s going to learn from it and be better next time.”

He was certainly better against the Cavaliers than he was against UNC, but that doesn’t mean he was particularly excellent either. It was another tough showing in a season that’s had more of them than usual for Mullen, and his woes began early.

Andrew Greenspan won the first faceoff of the game for UVA, and Virginia capitalized with a goal from Ryan Duenkel almost immediately after. Less than a minute into the contest, Syracuse was losing both the game and the faceoff battle.

It was a sign of things to come. Despite scoring his third goal of the season late, Mullen won just one of his first six faceoffs, and finished the game with a sub-50% win rate for the fourth time this season. The faceoff questions, no matter how exhausting they must feel at this point, will be going nowhere for Gait.

Wyatt woke up

After starting the season with three consecutive two-goal performances off the bench, it seemed like Wyatt Hottle was hitting a new gear in his junior season. He looked unstoppable, and every bit of the dynamic presence Syracuse needed in its midfield.

Then he went silent for a bit, and elevating him to the starting lineup didn’t do much to help matters. He was held scoreless in losses to Princeton and UPenn and didn’t find another multi-goal performance until March 22 against Georgetown. But even after that game, Hottle was held scoreless against Duke, and scored just once in SU’s loss to North Carolina.

He had seemingly fallen asleep. But he woke up in a big way on Saturday.

Hottle gave Syracuse its first lead of the game on an assist from Spallina, ripping his shot past Jake Marek to make it 2-1 SU. In the second quarter, Michael Leo lofted him a nifty cross-crease pass, which he bounced into the back of the net to push SU’s advantage to 5-2.

He got his third point of the afternoon on a second-quarter assist to Luke Rhoa, finishing off his hat trick late in the third to stretch the lead to 12-9. His three goals and four points on the day were both season high marks for the midfielder.

The Return of McCool

McCool probably doesn’t want to remember his last outing. All things considered, it might have been the worst of his career.

He was benched for just the second time ever, and the first time this season. He made a season-low seven saves, had a season-low 36.8% save rate and conceded 12 goals in the loss. After the game, Gait reaffirmed his trust in his shot-stopper.

“Jimmy’s our starter, and we haven’t made any changes to that,” Gait said.

But that doesn’t mean it was fair to wonder about what version of McCool the Orange would be getting. Would he be shaken by the benching, his confidence shattered? Or would he have the memory of a goldfish, moving on from the performance and returning to the McCool of old?

It was the latter. He let in the first shot he faced, but he was lights out after that. Virginia’s next shot on goal, this one from Truitt Sunderland, got snuffed out. The following offering — also from Sunderland — got snuffed out as well. The next four all got stopped, too.

After letting in that first Duenkel goal, McCool held Virginia off the board for the rest of the first quarter, and the Cavaliers didn’t find a second score until roughly four minutes into the second frame. In four of McCool’s last five games entering Saturday, he finished with save rates below 50%.

On Saturday, he sported a crisp 64.0%. Back to the McCool of old indeed.

Night-Marek-ish performance

Puns aside, nightmarish is about the only adjective one can conjure up to describe Jake Marek’s performance on Saturday. The Cavaliers goalie just had a terrible afternoon.

It wasn’t as if Syracuse was just drowning him in shots, overwhelming him to a point where he was bound to let a few in. The Orange were actually outshot 46-35 by Virginia on Saturday, and fired 17 shots on goal to the Cavaliers’ 25. The only problem is that, when SU did end up putting it on cage, there was a feeling of inevitability that it would end up going in.

Marek actually saved the first shot on goal he faced, a close-range effort from midfielder Matt McIntee. He wouldn’t get accustomed to that feeling for much longer.

Syracuse’s next two shots went in, giving it a 2-1 lead. Marek saved the fourth shot he faced, this one from Mullen bombing in after a faceoff win. He made just three saves on the day, and two of them came in the first quarter.

He went the entirety of the second quarter without stopping a shot — allowing Syracuse to waltz into the half with a 7-6 advantage — and saved just one of Syracuse’s seven third-quarter tries on goal. By the time the fourth quarter rolled around, SU was up four and fully in cruise control.

The game was defined by its goalie play. Marek’s performance, with his 17.6% save rate, was diametrically opposed to McCool’s.

Published on April 11, 2026 at 6:31 pm
Contact Mauricio: mjpalmar@syr.edu | @mpalmarDO