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Syracuse has spent its entire season building toward Sunday. Sixteen games to get to this stage, and sixteen games to demonstrate exactly how good it was.

The Orange couldn’t claim the Atlantic Coast Conference’s best record, and they couldn’t repeat as ACC Tournament champions either, watching a late lead wither away against North Carolina on May 1. But none of that mattered. Making it to May is what matters most, and that’s why Joey Spallina — with his earbuds dangling off of his ears — was cautiously optimistic about his team’s chances.

“We’re still alive,” Spallina said after that loss to UNC. “We still have much to play for.”

And somehow, after 60 minutes of play Sunday against Yale, Spallina can say the same thing. Despite trailing 8-6 at halftime, the Orange dominated the second half to advance to the NCAA Tournament Quarterfinal in Hempstead, New York. The Orange will take on UNC for a third time this season with a trip to the Final Four on the line.

Here are some observations from No. 6 seed Syracuse’s (12-5, 2-2 ACC) 16-15 NCAA Tournament First Round win over Yale (9-6, 4-2 Ivy) Sunday:

Vintage Mullen

It took six seconds for John Mullen to make his mark on this game. Lord knows he needed it.

Syracuse’s faceoff specialist hasn’t had the smoothest year. He went from a preseason Second Team All-American to not even sniffing Inside Lacrosse’s Honorable Mention list. He’s hovered just above 50% for most of the season and had several particularly rough performances — Penn and Harvard, among others.

But none of that mattered Sunday. Squaring off against Nick Wehmeyer to open the contest, he wrestled the ball away from his opponent and sprinted down the field. He caught the Bulldogs off-guard, as if they had no idea what to do with the madman streaking into their defensive zone, and once he got within range of the net, he unleashed.

Just like that, Syracuse was up 1-0.

Mullen’s domination continued from there. Yale’s Ben Cuomo won the ensuing clash to tie the draw battle 1-1, but Mullen won the next nine battles to widen that gap. Whether it was Wehmeyer or Cuomo, neither could truly pose a threat to him.

He finished the first half winning 13-of-16 faceoffs and ended the day 21-of-33 at the faceoff X, good for a 63.6% win rate. It was his highest single-game win total all season.

Off the mark

When the Orange can put the ball on cage, good things tend to happen. But they just couldn’t finish consistently on Sunday.

The struggles began in the first quarter and were exemplified by Finn Thomson — usually a sharp finisher — missing two early close-range looks by bouncing his shots off the pole. SU hit the pipe five times in the first quarter. Syracuse was firing shots off the mark from way downtown, failing to be more selective with its shots, and it led to many of Mullen’s extra possessions being wasted.

SU entered the second half down 8-6 to Yale, its first halftime deficit since its 14-9 loss to North Carolina on April 4. Why’s that? Well, the Orange had a whopping 29 shots in the game’s opening 30 minutes, and only 11 of them were on target.

Combine that with Syracuse’s penchant of firing passes awry and dropping the ones that it should catch, the Orange were lucky to only have six giveaways at halftime. All around, it was just sloppy play from SU.

The Orange had been undisciplined before — whether it be with penalties or just lackadaisical offensive play — and it hadn’t cost them then. On this stage, the Orange barely got away with it again.

Spallina, but not at X

For most of the season, Spallina’s role in Syracuse’s offense has been pretty simple. It obviously varies based on the opponent, but in actuality, SU’s offense is best when its talisman is sitting a few feet behind the goal, surveying his options to pick out the right pass.

The most striking example of that was against Air Force, when Spallina picked apart the Falcons and racked up a career-high eight assists. But even in defeat, this maxim had proven true, like against North Carolina in the ACC Tournament, when Spallina picked up four assists while parked at X.

“I think it’s just always been my game,” Spallina said after the loss.

Early on, though, it wasn’t his game against the Bulldogs. For whatever reason, fewer of Syracuse’s offensive possessions were funneled through the senior, and he wasn’t distributing at X nearly as much as he was against UNC.

He had one assist in the first half — not from X — to Tucker Kellogg that made it 6-4. That was it. When he finally parked at X and could distribute the ball the way that he usually does, he found Finn Thomson in front of the net to tie the game 8-8 early in the third quarter.

It seems to work. Perhaps Syracuse should’ve tried it more.

Second-half separation

The first three-goal run of the game came from Yale. So did the first four-goal run. In the second quarter, the Bulldogs flipped a 6-4 deficit into an 8-6 advantage entering halftime.

If this trend continued, the Bulldogs would be the ones exiting the JMA Wireless Dome with a trip to the NCAA Tournament Quarterfinals locked up. But SU completely reversed that momentum in the second half.

Firstly, there was a three-goal run from the Orange to open the third quarter — featuring that aforementioned assist from Spallina to Thomson — which gave Syracuse a 9-8 lead. Yale didn’t go quietly, answering those scores to reclaim a 10-9 lead, but Jimmy McCool remained stout in net.

SU’s goalie saved five of the Bulldogs’ eight shots on target in the third quarter, giving his teammates exactly what they needed to pull ahead. Syracuse’s offense rewarded his efforts with seven goals in the frame, putting SU up 13-11 entering the fourth.

Yale wouldn’t lead again, despite numerous close calls where the Bulldogs trimmed their deficit to one goal late in the fourth. That third quarter — where the Orange outscored the Bulldogs 7-3 — was just enough to lift Syracuse above Yale and into the NCAA Tournament Quarterfinal.

Published on May 10, 2026 at 7:48 pm
Contact Mauricio: mjpalmar@syr.edu | @mpalmarDO