Syracuse University lacrosse midfielder JoJo Marasco picks up a groundball against Villanova on Thursday. SU dominated groundballs 41-22 in the 15-6 victory.Radnor, Pa. -- Ricky Buhr summed up the Syracuse University lacrosse team’s situation perfectly.
“There’s definitely no weight off our shoulders yet,” the sophomore faceoff specialist said. “We’re still stuck in the woods, and we need to get out.”
Thanks to the Orange’s best overall performance of the season, the path has atr least become visible. Senior midfielder Bobby Eilers scored a career-high four goals and had plenty of help from his fellow middies, and Syracuse crushed Villanova 15-6 in the inaugural Big East men’s lacrosse tournament semifinals Thursday night before a crowd of 3,415 at Villanova Stadium.
The third-seeded Orange (8-7) will face fourth-seeded St. John’s (8-6), which stunned Notre Dame 8-7 in the first semifinal, at noon Saturday for the tournament title and an automatic berth in the NCAA Tournament. The seedings will be announced Sunday night.
“We’ve been stressing trying to play 60 minutes of lacrosse,” SU coach John Desko said. “And this year we’ve either had a good first half or have had to play catch-up in the second half. I thought we got pretty close to 60 minutes of lacrosse today, which is our goal.”
How close the Orange got to that goal can be witnessed on the scoreboard against a team that defeated it 11-10 in the regular season and in the supporting stats, specifically Buhr’s ability to win 11 of 20 faceffs against national top-10 specialist Thomas Croonquist, SU’s 41-22 domination on groundballs and its ability to avoid costly turnovers.
“They did a great job,” Villanova coach Mike Corrado said. “They outplayed us in every facet of the game.”
A key was Buhr, who had an anemic 42.1 percent faceoff success rate entering the game.
“I just felt really comfortable at the X all day,” Buhr said. “Once I got in that groove I just kept rolling. It really helped us out, especially in the second half when we just kept going and going.”
“We had equal opportunities to score goals,” Desko said, “and it hadn’t been that way all year.”
Syracuse certainly made the most of the opportunities, with Eilers leading the way but getting plenty of assistance from a midfield unit that poured in 12 of the team’s 15 goals.
“We talked yesterday about it not being our last practice,” Eilers said, “and I took that to heart and the whole team took that to heart. It’s important to us. We don’t want to be that team that doesn’t make the playoffs.”
There has been only one of them since 1982 – the 2007 team that finished 5-8. With Eilers playing the best game of his career the Orange avoided joining that squad, at least for another two days. The 6-foot-5 senior scored the opening goal of the game on a hard bounce shot following a drive down the right alley through a double-team. He cut off a pick inside and dunked a Tommy Palasek pass for his second. And then he ripped home two hard right-handed shots from his favorite spot up top.
“The first one was a confidence builder,” he said.
And it set the tone for a game in which the Orange offensive players attacked aggressively from start to finish, forcing Villanova defenders to double-team and then finding open teammates for high-percentage shots. Proof positive: Attackmen Palasek, Tim Desko and Derek Maltz produced only one goal apiece but piled up seven assists by feeding up top to wide-open middies.
Sophomore Scott Loy, who had two only goals in 14 regular-season games, pitched in with two. So did redshirt freshman Hakeem Lecky, who had only three goals during the regular season. True freshman Matt Walters, another two-goal scorer during the regular season, chipped in with two laser goals on man-up chances.
“I felt everyone was dodging hard today,” Loy said. “It seemed that overall as an offense we were just moving the ball well, and with the attack dodging hard and us moving up top, we seemed to get open.”
It was the story of the game, and it was written from start to finish, perhaps the first time that has occurred all season. Syracuse led only 6-4 at intermission, the same margin of victory it enjoyed during the regular-season game. But instead of wilting in the second half it poured it on, outscoring the Wildcats 9-2 in the second half.
Desko said the groundball domination told the reason why.
“It showed we played with a sense of urgency,” he said.
It is a sense the Orange will need again Saturday if it hopes to really find its way out of the woods.