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HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. — Sitting at the podium, Gary Gait could finally exhale. He needed it.

Syracuse’s head coach has been through the wringer recently. Three weeks ago, he watched his squad blow an 8-7 halftime lead to then-No. 1 Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana. The week after, he stood on Charlotte’s American Legion Stadium’s sidelines, helpless, as SU’s 9-7 fourth-quarter advantage — and hopes at an Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament championship — evaporated into thin air against North Carolina.

Even his wins have been exercises in agony. The Orange entered the NCAA Tournament as a No. 6 seed, and Yale gave them just everything they could handle last weekend. His team barely escaped with a 16-15 victory, and his reward was a third — yes, third — matchup against UNC, which has already defeated SU twice.

There has been no respite for Gait. He deserved to soak this one in.

“It was, you know, take a deep breath, relax, the clock winds down,” Gait said. “But start thinking about what we gotta do to get ready for next week.”

You didn’t think he’d get complacent now, did you? Relief, if any, would be short-lived for Gait. It’s a privilege to even have a game to think about, one that Joe Breschi doesn’t. Because No. 6 seed Syracuse (13-5, 2-2 ACC) walked into Hempstead’s James M. Shuart Stadium Saturday, outplayed Breschi’s No. 3 seed North Carolina (13-5, 2-2 ACC) squad for the bulk of sixty minutes, exiting with a 13-11 victory in the NCAA Tournament Quarterfinal.

Just as he did last year, Joey Spallina delivered a crown jewel in his homeland of Long Island, powering SU to victory with three goals and three assists. With the win, the Orange reached consecutive Final Fours for the first time since 2009.

Last year’s trip to Championship Weekend ended with a 14-8 loss to Maryland. Spallina got held to one point, a garbage-time assist. Syracuse’s path through the NCAA Tournament has mirrored that 2025 team thus far: a comeback first-round win over an Ivy League foe and a shootout win on Long Island against a No. 3 seed.

But history can’t repeat itself again. Spallina won’t allow it.

“We were fat and happy last year, to be honest,” Spallina said after the win. “I feel like there’s just a lot on the bone, that’s still there.”

Of course there is. All season long, the refrain has been the same. A reporter asks any of the Orange — especially their senior class — what their goals are for this season, and the response is as predictable as hands on an analog clock.

It always comes back to that national championship.

“Putting a 2026 championship banner up in the Dome is the only thing I really give a s— about,” Spallina told The Daily Orange before the season.

He’s as close as ever to making that dream a reality.

It’s not just thanks to him, obviously. Syracuse’s defense locked down Owen Duffy and Dominic Pietramala, limiting the star attack duo to a combined three goals and five points. Jimmy McCool outplayed UNC’s Kent Goode in net, far exceeding Goode’s 35% save rate by stopping 52.2% of the Tar Heels’ shots on cage. And John Mullen had one of his best performances of the season, limiting Brady Wambach to a 48.1% faceoff clip.

Syracuse somehow overcame a season-high 19 turnovers. Midfielders Luke Rhoa and Wyatt Hottle each had three-point outings. And Finn Thomson checked in with a hat trick as well, his third consecutive one. But would you like to hazard a guess as to which stat Gait was most proud of after the win?

“We dominated the ground ball battle,” Gait said postgame. “That was huge, and that’s effort.”

Effort’s apt. That’s probably the best noun to describe SU Saturday. Look at Billy Dwan III in that fourth quarter, diving out of bounds on a clearance and simultaneously getting a pass off to Dante Bowen, sparking the Spallina goal that ultimately put the Tar Heels away for good. You want to talk about effort? There it is, the spitting image of it, the kind of picture you’d find in the dictionary next to the word’s definition.

If not for that effort, Syracuse could have wilted with five minutes left in the first half, when Brevin Wilson easily dodged Jordan Beck at X and whipped his shot into the back of the net, giving the Tar Heels their fourth consecutive goal.

Spallina was candid postgame. He said he’s seen the Orange lose games like that in years past, give these kinds of contests away and resign themselves to their fate. Who knows if it’s experience, who knows if it’s maturity, who knows if it’s a flat out sense of urgency?

Whatever the reason, they didn’t resign themselves to a loss Saturday. That four-goal Tar Heel run was followed by six unanswered Syracuse scores. Pietramala — fresh off an NCAA Tournament record-setting 10 goals — didn’t score until the fourth quarter. And, unlike when these two last faced off, SU’s defense held strong to close the game.

Of course it did. Breschi put it succinctly postgame, saying each game’s had its own personality. As Duffy said, the past is the past. The future is now. This wasn’t the same North Carolina that Syracuse faced in Charlotte, or even in Chapel Hill. But this isn’t the same Syracuse squad, either.

“I thought we made some great adjustments,” Gait said postgame. “But more than anything, the players stepped up and made plays when we needed them.”

The time wound down on the clock. Spallina wound back his stick and jubilantily tossed the ball into the air. For those final seconds, it became one with the cosmos, suspended in the atmosphere. Approximately half an hour after that moment, he strolled to the podium, humming some unknown tune, and flipped through a statsheet as if he were Leonardo da Vinci, taking a step back to observe his Mona Lisa.

He seemed elated, yes, that’s the word. Anything but a synonym of complacent.

“I still don’t think we’ve played a full 60 minutes yet,” Spallina said.

Published on May 16, 2026 at 5:39 pm
Contact Mauricio: mjpalmar@syr.edu | @mpalmarDO