CHESTER, Pa. — Syracuse was in disbelief.

Randy Staats took a knee and removed his helmet. Drew Jenkins sat back on the bench with his hands on his head. The yelling overheard in the Syracuse locker room, next door to the interview room, on Friday was replaced with a subdued atmosphere on Sunday afternoon.

A roaring comeback fell short and the Orange’s string of luck ran out.

“They never quit,” SU head coach John Desko said. “I think we’re pretty used to seeing the score and knowing what it’s going to take to come back. We always feel that we have a chance to win the game, no matter what the score is.”

Yet the chaotic joy that engulfed No. 4 Syracuse after stealing a last-second win from Duke on Friday instead struck No. 9 Notre Dame, which was fighting for its spot in the NCAA tournament. SU attack Kevin Rice tried a wraparound shot in the final three seconds, but Fighting Irish goalie Conor Kelly made a save as the clock ran out on Notre Dame’s 15-14 win.

The fourth-seeded Fighting Irish (8-5, 2-3 Atlantic Coast) hoisted the ACC tournament trophy before a crowd of 4,552 at PPL Park, while the third-seeded Syracuse (10-4, 2-3) players fell to crouches of despair as their torrid stretch of play came to an end.

“We played them to the last three seconds,” faceoff specialist Chris Daddio said. “Most teams would have just not been able to catch up. That’s just the way we’ve been playing lately.”

Daddio won 7-of-8 faceoffs in the opening quarter, but lost a string of six straight to UND in the second as the Irish knotted the score at 7-7 by halftime.

And in the third quarter, the Irish buried seven goals on the Orange to take a then-commanding five-goal lead into the final 15 minutes, silencing the audibly energetic Syracuse sideline.

If the Orange was to rally back from a multiple-goal deficit once more, it would need possessions.

“I can’t let it get to that point,” Daddio said. “It was crunch time at that point. I needed my team to have the ball. I really had no choice.”

The senior was struggling against Notre Dame’s Nick Ossello, whose athleticism and quickness on the whistle had earned his team a handful of possessions and a pair of fast-break goals.

After a goal by Jack Near stretched UND’s lead to 15-10 with 9:45 left, Daddio beat Ossello for the faceoff, and it led to a Billy Ward goal.

Then Daddio outworked Ossello again. A minute later, Derek Maltz found the back of the net. One more draw for Daddio and Randy Staats netted his fifth goal of the game.

“If you watched Syracuse this weekend, they’re like the ‘Terminator.’ You can’t kill them,” UND head coach Kevin Corrigan said. “You think they’re dead. You’ve shot them and then there they are, right on your tail again.”

Daddio beat Ossello once more — his sixth straight faceoff win in as many attempts in the quarter — and almost three minutes later, Scott Loy drew Syracuse within a goal.

But when Daddio lined up against Ossello with a one-goal deficit waiting to be erased — and the sound of “Dad-dio” chants coming from the SU fans — Ossello boxed him out and kicked a groundball ahead to himself.

Yet the Irish couldn’t convert from in close on that possession, and Syracuse cleared and called a timeout with 54.3 seconds left, down 15-14.

The only thing more improbable than Syracuse’s comeback win over Duke on Friday was repeating such a performance on Sunday.

Trailing by five goals with less than 10 minutes left in the fourth quarter, it appeared the Orange’s six-game, season-reviving winning streak would come to an uncharacteristic, blowout end.

After SU assistant Lelan Rogers yelled, “We’ve been here before” during a timeout, the team walked back to the field with a second straight miraculous comeback not only possible, but realistic.

The ball ended up in Rice’s stick with 10 seconds left, standing behind the cage. He dodged left, then spun back to his right and attacked the cage on Kelly’s right side.

With Near on his hip, Rice fired a shot high as his momentum took him away from the cage.

“It’s really on me. I’ve got to finish that in that situation,” Rice said.

Kelly was all over it. He popped his jersey out as he hopped in excitement, waiting for the horn to sound and his teammates to swarm him as the new ACC champions.

Said Desko of Notre Dame: “They played like they really wanted it.”

Published on April 27, 2014 at 3:41 pm

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