Youthful Syracuse Hitting its Stride During Critical Point of Season

OLNEY, Md. — For years, there couldn’t be a scenario more suited to Syracuse lacrosse than the one the Orange encountered Saturday.

A minute to go. Possession in hand. Tie game. Plenty at stake on a warm spring afternoon.

There was a time that exact situation carried a whiff of predestination. Somehow, someway, Syracuse would figure things out, deposit the winning goal, celebrate like it normally did and leave yet another team stewing in anguish.

That’s happened only sporadically of late, and not frequently when it really mattered most.

Maybe, though, it’s about to change.

Freshman Michael Leo’s goal with 12 seconds left sent Syracuse to a 15-14 victory over North Carolina at Good Counsel (Md.) High School. Cole Kirst scored three times and Joey Spallina added two goals and two assists for the Orange (8-5, 1-3 ACC), which has won five of six.

“I think people can start to see that we’re legit and can compete with anyone,” Leo said.

There is caution still warranted with Syracuse. Its lineup remains relatively young, though unquestionably filled with talent. It doesn’t have much margin for error if it wants to get back to the NCAA tournament after a one-year hiatus, meaning it probably needs to win at Virginia and Duke to close the regular season to have a realistic shot at an at-large berth.

Yet it is definitely better — better than last year’s forgettable 4-10 iteration, better than the version of itself that lost 19-13 to North Carolina on February 25.

On Saturday, the Orange shrugged off a 6-3 deficit and a significant early possession disparity to scrap its way back to ensure it never trailed by more than two in the second half.

“I think we’re much more resilient,” second-year coach Gary Gait said. “There were plenty of opportunities in that game where we could have packed it in, down by a couple goals a few times. Instead, we responded and fought back, and I think the difference was when we were down, we got a stop and we made some plays offensively. We’re more mature, certainly.”

More interesting, too, and Spallina is responsible for some of that. The charismatic freshman and Syracuse’s new 22 has lived up to the lofty hype that preceded his arrival in central New York and now has 34 goals and 27 assists.

Those who are grizzled enough to remember the juggernaut Syracuse was for almost 30 years might have felt a hint of the old Orange. Not just the last-minute magic, but the assurance that things would turn out all right.

Syracuse hasn’t played on Memorial Day Weekend since 2013. It hasn’t won a national title since 2009. It’s far too premature to suggest those achievements await this bunch, either this year or next or the one after that. Still, it was telling that Spallina recounted a postgame conversation with Steven Brooks, a member of two title teams during his Syracuse career and the national midfielder of the year in 2008.

“That was the first thing he said: ‘When you guys score, everybody cares. Everybody’s going crazy,’” Spallina said. “That’s exactly what you want in a young team. We’re just doing our thing right now.”

They did it at the expense of the Tar Heels (7-5, 1-3), who have dropped back-to-back games since an open weekend at the start of the month. The loss was a hit to North Carolina’s postseason hopes, which probably now require at least one victory over the team’s final two games. Both are against Notre Dame.

“I don’t doubt our effort at all, because we won the ground ball battle, we did a great job at the faceoff X, we rode great,” coach Joe Breschi said. “We just didn’t finish. We didn’t get stops when we needed to, and down the stretch, that will get you.”

Logan McGovern had three goals and one assist and Lance Tillman collected four assists for the Tar Heels.

North Carolina was the first team to face this year’s Orange a second time, which gives Breschi a different insight into a team that’s starting four freshmen (Spallina and Finn Thomson on attack, Leo in the midfield and Billy Dwan on close defense) and played three more as reserves Saturday.

Breschi said he knew the Orange had improved offensively and observed the group had become accustomed to playing alongside each other. Gait, too, acknowledged much of the difference stems from basic week-to-week improvement.

“It’s just understanding what to do when you need to do it,” Gait said. “We still made plenty of mistakes, but we didn’t shoot ourselves in the foot.”

In short, Syracuse gave itself a chance. It didn’t panic with its early deficit, didn’t fret when it trailed 11-9 late in the third quarter and didn’t get down after goals by North Carolina’s Griffin Gallagher and Dewey Egan less than three minutes apart tied it with 2:43 to go.

It went out, got a stop and then set up Leo for the most noteworthy goal of his freshman season, a score that secured Syracuse’s first ACC victory and opened up the possibility of April success creating an opportunity for joy in May.

“It’s a big weight off our shoulders,” Spallina said of checking a league victory off the to-do list. “Now we have two of our biggest games of our young careers coming up.”