BALTIMORE — The Syracuse men’s lacrosse team was buckling, giving another opponent a chance to come from behind and tie the game. It had already happened against Virginia and Denver, but in these games the Orangemen found a clutch goal to seal the win.

But they had no such answer against No. 2 Johns Hopkins.

The Blue Jays got the go-ahead goal with 1:21 to play, and this time the Orangemen found themselves in a must-tie situation.

Sophomore attacker Brian Nee’s point-blank attempt with 45 seconds left clanked the post. Mike Powell’s shot on a man-advantage with 18 seconds remaining went right into the stick of Blue Jays goalie Nick Murtha, who also saved Sol Bliss’ desperation shot from the center midfield with two seconds left.

The No. 1 Orangemen (4-1) squandered a three-goal lead in the fourth quarter and suffered a stunning 9-8 defeat to the Blue Jays (3-0) at Homewood Field before 6,276.

‘We had a couple of opportunities in the end,’ head coach John Desko said. ‘Brian Nee almost put it away, and I think it speaks for the game. If you look at the stats, face-offs, shots, they’re all one goal, one ground ball away, one face-off away.’

A week before, the Orangemen survived a potential upset, beating Denver, 13-10, to win the 2002 Pioneer Men’s Lacrosse Face-Off Classic.

In its last 30 outings, Syracuse is 1-5 in games decided by one goal or less and 24-0 in games decided by more than one goal. Lately, the Orangemen have had difficulty maintaining leads in the fourth quarter.

But the Orangemen dominated most of the game, especially in the second and third quarters, and they seemed poised to win. SU pressured the Hopkins defense and crease. It converted Blue Jay turnovers into scoring chances.

On one occasion, Nee picked off an errant clearing pass from Murtha and found a streaking Steve Vallone. The goal was Vallone’s third of the season and gave SU a 7-4 lead after three quarters.

Mike Powell, the team’s leading scorer this season with 26 points coming into the game, was limited to just one assist. The Powell-Coffman-Springer triumvirate combined for just 3 points against the Blue Jays.

‘The attack got a lot of good looks today,’ midfielder Spencer Wright said. ‘We had bad luck with the bounces of the ball. I wouldn’t say they shut us down, but we just couldn’t put the ball away.’

Desko expected a high-scoring game and the teams had the opportunity to follow through as SU outshot the Blue Jays, 39-37. Instead, bad bounces coupled with stellar performances in net from SU’s Jay Pfeifer and Hopkins’ Murtha precluded that prospect.

Pfeifer continued to prove his worth as a starting goalie. He saved a sure Conor Ford goal with the turn of his stick late in the third quarter, jumping to make the save before the ball bounced into his catching net. Pfeifer, who finished with 15 saves, was active yet composed in net.

But he couldn’t prevent the breakdown.

Kevin Boland, a prep-school teammate of Pfeifer at the Gilman School in Baltimore, was the main man responsible for the Hopkins comeback. The Blue Jays’ Kyle Harrison lit the match at 7:28 of the fourth quarter when he sent a rocket from 20 yards out past Pfeifer.

Boland then fueled the comeback. He found Ford, who bounced a shot past Pfeifer at the 4:29 mark of the fourth quarter.

Two minutes later, Boland used his quickness to reverse field behind the net. He fooled Pfeifer with a shot from a sharp angle that trimmed SU’s lead to 8-7 with 2:31 left.

‘Harrison and Boland were two very quick players behind the goal,’ Desko said. ‘They tried to get some mismatches down there, and they took advantage of us and made some good plays late in the game.’

Just 20 seconds later, Boland fed Bobby Benson for a goal to tie the game. The momentum swung to the Blue Jays, and the Orangemen were unable to gain possession of the ball.

A pushing call against SU gave Hopkins possession with 1:56 to go, and Boland again took advantage. He found space on the left wing to drive to the crease, faked Pfeifer and stuffed the ball into the top right corner of the net for the game-winner — Hopkins’ only lead of the game.

Desko called a timeout with 30 seconds left to try to find the equalizer, confident that SU had the personnel to get the job done.

‘We called a timeout to set up a play for Brian to get that shot off,’ Desko said. ‘But it didn’t quite work.’

Published on March 18, 2002 at 12:00 pm