Only one defense Syracuse faced this season was able to hold top goal scorers Kevin Rice and Dylan Donahue to one goal each.

It was Johns Hopkins. And in that 13-10 SU win on March 14, the Orange was forced more than ever this season to test its offensive depth.

“I think that we’re in the process now of reminding them of who Hopkins is,” head coach John Desko said. “I don’t think they’ve changed too much defensively…We’ll try to throw some different twists at them this go-around.”

Rice is coming off a career-high nine point game on Sunday and Donahue has scored a combined six times in his last two games.

The veteran attacks that account for 48 percent of SU’s scoring will look to carry the second-seeded Orange (13-2, 2-2 Atlantic Coast) this time around against Johns Hopkins (10-6, 4-1 Big 10) in the NCAA tournament quarterfinals on Sunday at noon in Annapolis, Maryland.

After struggling to score last time around against JHU, the two hope their fate changes with Rice coming off one of the best games of his career. He is still cognizant that the Blue Jays’ defense might be even more pressuring on him when he has the ball.

“It’s nice to come off a good game personally,” Rice said. “At the same time that means you’re probably going to get a little more attention the next weekend.”

Rice recalled the Blue Jays putting extra pressure on SU’s attack, sliding earlier to cover him and Donahue, thus allowing Randy Staats and the first-line midfield to account for nine of 13 goals.

It’s a defensive strategy more teams tried in the beginning of the season against Syracuse, but there are no guarantees come Sunday.

“It’s a whole new game,” Staats said. “You can’t just take a game that happened in the middle of the season and think you’re going to play the same way coming into this playoff game.”

Donahue isn’t deterred by one of his poorest games of the season. His one goal came on his usual stationary approach, as he stood five yards outside the crease to score on a ball fed to him by a streaking Rice.

His score was arguably the biggest of the game, giving the Orange the lead for good in the fourth quarter. But he was largely stifled in the prior 52 minutes, something Syracuse will be hard-pressed to overcome if the same defensive pressure presents itself again.

“You try and look past that kind of thing,” Donahue said of his struggle against the Blue Jays. “Move on and work the best you can.”

Syracuse has relied heavily on its highly touted attack all season. Donahue leads the team in goals with 47 and Rice averages the third-most assists per game in the country.

Rice pointed out that even though it was unconventional, his team won without high scoring performances from him or Donahue and is just as capable of doing it again with the help from its offensively oriented midfielders.

“We were just trying to not be overly aggressive when it wasn’t the right move. Our midfield played great in that game and if they’re playing great again we’ll have no problem giving them the ball and letting them have the onus of the offense.”

Published on May 15, 2015 at 9:11 am

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