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Chase Scanlan slipped and nearly fell while changing directions behind the cage. He regained his footing and came out to the right of Army goalie Wyatt Schupler. With short-stick defensive midfielder Matthew Horace draped on his shoulder, Scanlan faked a pass back to the top, giving him a step on Horace to turn toward the goal.

Scanlan fell to his right at the hash marks as he released the ball. His shot bounced short of Schupler, who couldn’t pick it up. And less than 30 seconds into Syracuse’s 2021 campaign, it was up a goal.

For a quarter on Sunday afternoon, the Orange’s offense looked like the top-10 unit it was last year. Better, even. Scanlan didn’t score a point against the Black Knights last season. Now, he looked comfortable with the ball on his stick, taking on the mismatch. Tucker Dordevic soon poured in a first-quarter hat-trick.

SU scored six goals in the opening frame, jumping to a 6-1 lead at one point. It scored five goals the rest of the game. But the No. 13 Black Knights (1-1) mounted a comeback that spanned the final three quarters, upsetting the No. 4 Orange (0-1) in the Carrier Dome, 18-11. They closed down lanes better, Schupler made several key stops, and Syracuse became sloppy.

“I thought our offense was a little rushed, but I wasn’t complaining because they were starting to put points up,” head coach John Desko said. “And then, like I said, the goalie in the second half really came alive and started to frustrate us. And maybe it was the worst thing to happen, right? Getting that early lead, relaxing.”

When Scanlan caught the ball behind the Army defense in the fourth quarter, there was still time for Syracuse. The Orange scored five unanswered goals in just over eight minutes in the opening quarter, and they needed to do so again to tie the game. Scanlan turned, finding himself at the crease with just Schupler to beat. It was a position from which Army star Brendan Nichtern scored twice from in the first half at the other cage.

Scanlan, though, fired the ball into the chest of a leaping Schupler, like most of his teammates had done since the end of the first quarter. SU initially found success shooting high-to-low, targeting Schupler’s ankles. Two of Dordevic’s three first-quarter goals came targeting the lower part of the net. Scanlan’s opening goal was a bouncer.

Schupler became accustomed to dropping low to make stops, Desko said, and was nearly sitting on a couple of saves. So, the Orange shifted to aiming higher. But they lost their early accuracy. Desko estimated that Dordevic hit at least three or four shots off the pipe, looking for the top corner. Fellow top-line midfielder Brendan Curry rang a step-down shot off the crossbar in the fourth period.

Syracuse players became indecisive. Scanlan spun off a defender in the third quarter and fired a bouncer. But it had the pace of a pass. Second-line midfielder Jacob Buttermore windmilled into a low-shot for a first-quarter goal. In the third frame, he, too, couldn’t find the same pace on his shot. Going overhand, he lobbed a half-speed ball into Schupler’s feet.

“The goalie started making stops,” Dordevic said. “We have to change up how we shoot, but that’s on us as shooters. We got to just clean it up.”

The Orange also had fewer possessions to work with after the first quarter. Jakob Phaup won six of eight faceoffs in the opening period. SU won the overall faceoff battle 19-13, but in the third quarter, Army took possession from five of the seven draws as it stretched out a lead.

It heightened the importance of every missed pass. In transition, Scanlan looked early in the third quarter for a streaking Owen Seebold coming off the bench and down the middle of the offensive zone. The pass was slightly too low, and Seebold couldn’t catch it. As the ball rolled out of bounds, offensive coordinator Pat March hunched forward with his hands on his knees, shaking his head. Later, Scanlan misplaced a ball trying to find Curry from behind the net for another of his game-high three turnovers. This one, completely unforced.

Peter Dearth recorded 3 groundballs in Syracuse’s 18-11 loss to Army. Courtesy of Rich Barnes | USA-Today Sports

Part of that stems from the team’s limited time on the field since winter break. The Orange finished their third week of practice coming into Sunday’s game. They’d typically have at least five weeks of spring practice, as well as scrimmages, before their season-opener, Desko said. SU hasn’t played a ranked team to start a season since 2011, either.

Desko admitted in the post-game press conference that those are all excuses. And with Atlantic Coast Conference play starting in less than a week against No. 3 Virginia, the solutions need to come fast.

“You’re trying to figure out how we can adjust practice to get a game experience, either we have to scrimmage or I’m not sure,” Desko said.

The continuity in this year’s team was supposed to combat that lack of playing time. Only Owen Hiltz on the offensive side hadn’t played major minutes in collegiate lacrosse before, and he looked good with a fast catch-and-shoot in the fourth quarter that Schupler couldn’t pick it up.

The top midfield line all came back, too. They were largely responsible for Syracuse avoiding an upset to Army last season, scoring all but one goal in a 9-7 win. They looked just as explosive in the first 15 minutes on Sunday. Everyone did. But the execution on adjustments never came. It was Army, this time, that found solutions.

Published on February 21, 2021 at 5:26 pm

Contact Arabdho: armajumd@syr.edu | @aromajumder