by SYRACUSE, N.Y. – No. 1 Syracuse (6-0) outscored No. 17 Johns Hopkins 11-5 over the last three quarters to emerge with 13-10 victory against the Blue Jays in front of a season-high 5,778 fans Saturday, March 14 at the Carrier Dome.
The Orange trailed by four early before ripping off seven straight goals to gain the lead, and eventually held off the Blue Jays (3-4) for its fourth consecutive home win against its archrival.
“I thought it was a great college lacrosse game today,” Orange head coach John Desko said. “Hopkins put some goals up early and forced us to fight back, and the game just continued the rest of the way. My hat is off to them. Both teams played for 60 minutes and it’s a great ‘W’ for us.”
Randy Staats (Six Nations) led the Orange with a game-high four goals.Kevin Rice matched Staats for team-high scoring honors with four points on one goal and three assists.
The Syracuse offense also received a boost from its first midfield, which combined for five goals and six points. Nicky Galasso and Henry Schoonmaker both scored twice. Schoonmaker added an assist to finish with a season-high three points. Hakeem Lecky chipped in, netting the Orange’s first goal of the game midway through the opening quarter.
Hopkins scored the first three goals of the contest, and went ahead 5-1 on a John Crawley tally with 4:23 left in the first quarter. The Orange defense bounced back, keeping the Blue Jays off the scoreboard for the next 16:41.
The Orange offense took advantage of the dry spell, as six different players combined for seven straight goals to give Syracuse an 8-5 advantage with 3:06 remaining in the half. Staats ignited the scoring spurt when he finished a Rice pass at the 1:28 mark of the first period, and he was the only SU player with multiple goals in the run.
Wells Stanwick broke the Hopkins drought, scoring unassisted with 2:42 left before halftime to trim the SU advantage to 8-6 at the break.
The Blue Jays continued their surge in the third quarter, as Shack Stanwick registered the first two goals of the second half to knot the score 8-all.
The Orange regained a two-goal margin on back-to-back goals by Staats and Galasso late in the third, but the Blue Jays hung tough. Ryan Brown assisted on consecutive man-up goals by Crawley and Patrick Fraser to tie the game, 10-10, with 12:54 remaining in regulation.
Fraser’s goal came after a two-minute penalty for unnecessary roughness was assessed to SU’sMike Messina. However, the Orange defense successfully killed the remainder of Hopkins extra-man opportunity following Fraser’s goal and held the Blue Jays scoreless for the rest of the game.
That set the stage for Dylan Donahue, who snapped the tie with a transition goal at the 7:39 mark after a big save by Bobby Wardwell on Brown. Less than two minutes later, Schoonmaker scored unassisted to make it 12-10 Orange, and Staats put the exclamation point on the victory with an empty-net goal with 1:22 remaining to produce the final score.
Brown and Shack Stanwick each had two goals and two assists to lead the Blue Jays. Crawley also finished with a pair of goals.
Wardwell recorded five saves to earn the win, including three in the fourth quarter. Hopkins goalie Eric Schneider made 13 saves.
Syracuse held a slight 41-40 advantage in shots and won the ground-ball battle, 36-20.
Faceoff specialist Ben Williams posted his fourth game of at least 15 faceoff wins. Williams was 16-for-27 (.593) against the Blue Jays and collected 11 ground balls.
Syracuse returns to conference play next Sunday, March 22 when it welcomes two-time defending NCAA champion Duke to the Carrier Dome for the first time since 1994. The Orange and Blue Devils square off at 12:30 p.m. on ESPNU.
