Syracuse University lacrosse team builds 10-4 lead, then survives huge second-half Hobart rally

Geneva -- Gone was the warm, fuzzy feeling of Saturday’s 19-goal barrage against Rutgters. With it went the memories of a 10-goal outburst in the first half and a career-high six goals by sophomore attackman Derek Maltz. All seemed to have occurred eons ago.

This was about survival now, plain and simple. It was Syracuse 13, Hobart 12 with 8.5 seconds to play Tuesday night at Boswell Field following Alex Love’s fourth goal of the game, a left-handed laser that whizzed past the stick of Orange goalie Bobby Wardwell. At the faceoff X was Hobart senior Bobby Dattilo, the nation’s best draw artist. Dattilo had won 18 of 27 previous draws (66.7 percent).

“He told me beforehand to just give him 8 seconds and he would get it done,” Love recalled afterward. “He does it all the time in practice.”

Facing Datillo was SU junior Brian Megill, the star close defender who only recently became part of the Orange’s attempt to solve its season-long woes at the X. Megill had gone 2-for-9 against the Hobart ace.

“Keep him from getting it out the front,” Megill said of his strategy. “I figured if he had to go backward to get it there wouldn’t be enough time to score.”

Sure enough, the ball flipped high into the air behind Dattilo and toward the Hobart goal. Megill got the win. Three seconds later the Orange did, too, although the players looked more like survivors than victors afterward.

“Survived is right,” senior attackman Tommy Palasek said.

Syracuse (7-5) survived to win consecutive games for the first time since the opening two contests of the season and take home the Kraus-Simmons trophy for the 25th time in 27 years. It survived 18 saves – most of them superb one-on-one stops – by Hobart sophomore goalie Peter Zonino. And it survived Dattilo’s dominance at the X that complemented Zonino’s heroics in the cage and fueled a furious second-half comeback.

“It takes a lot of courage to do what our team today,” said Hobart sophomore attackman Cam Stone (Jamesville-DeWitt), who fed Love for the 12th goal to finish with a team-high five points (2-3). “The thing about Pete and Bob is they can control a game. Pete was huge and Bobby was dominant. It gave us a chance.”

It certainly appeared that Hobart (3-9) would have no chance at halftime. Maltz had already scored five goals by then, and SU’s transition game was pouring shots past Zonino and a clip that was reminiscent of Saturday’s 13-goal first half vs. Rutgers.

“I was moving well and my teammates were finding me,” Maltz said. “It was really all about them looking for me and getting me the ball.”

And then it all changed.

“We came out in the second half and it seemed to be a totally different atmosphere,” SU coach John Desko said. “The sun was down and the lights were on, and visually it just looked different. And then those two guys looked different.”

Those two guys were Dattilo and Zonino, especially the latter.

“I kind of sat by myself at halftime and thought about the way things went and how I had played,” Zonino said. “Cam came over the calmed me down some. I guess I just came out loose in the second half and started to see the ball a lot better. I guess I got hot.”

Hot is an understatement. This wasn’t St. John’s, a game in which Orange shooters obliged goalie Jeff Lowman by shooting shot after shot into his stick. These were great chances and great shots, a variety of high dunk attempts following low fakes and vice-versa. Zonino was suddenly in a zone, though, and turned most of them aside.

“Four times I came around alone from X (behind the cage) one-on-one,” Palasek said. “I scored one time. He robbed me the other three. He was unbelievable.”

Palasek had plenty of company.

“Maltz was the one guy who was able to finish the ball against that guy,” Desko said. “He was great.”

With Zonino stuffing SU’s transition game and sending the ball the other way, it was Hobart that began to put on a fast-break clinic, and SU’s six-goal cushion was a two-goal nail-butter by midway through the fourth quarter.

It is ironic, then, that Tim Desko’s change-up with 6:06 remaining somehow fluttered past Zonino’s waving stick and into the cage to give SU its 13th – and winning – goal.

“I would rather see regular shots than those,” Zonino said. “They’re harder to stop.”

Dattilo was hard to stop the entire game, and 8 seconds was enough time to complete an epic comeback. Then the ball popped behind him and it was over.

Syracuse had survived.

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