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In the first five minutes of Saturday’s game, Syracuse’s offense only set up in the offensive zone once. And at the end of that possession, Brendan Curry had a turnover. Meanwhile, North Carolina poured in four goals and wrestled away any semblance of control the Orange may have thought they’d have playing in front of fans at the Carrier Dome.

A lack of possessions has become the common culprit in Syracuse’s losses this year. The offense certainly didn’t believe there was much the Tar Heels were doing defensively that slowed them down.

“To be honest, I just think we needed the ball more,” said Tucker Dordevic, who scored four goals on Saturday. “When we had the ball, we were scoring goals, so I don’t think really much of what (UNC) did was confusing us.”

In past games, though, the possession problems traced back to a faceoff unit that has massively underperformed. Notre Dame won 23-of-32 faceoffs in the Orange’s last loss before Saturday, and the week before that, Duke took 24-of-32 draws from SU. While Jakob Phaup struggled again against UNC, his backup, Danny Varello, came in to win 11-of-19 draws. The Tar Heels won just four more faceoffs than SU overall.

But No. 5 North Carolina (9-2, 2-2 Atlantic Coast) earned nine more possessions than Syracuse on Saturday, per Lacrosse Reference, and more striking was the Tar Heels’ time of possession of nearly 63%. Four missed clears in the first half alone contributed heavily to that, and many more unforced errors from the No. 9 Orange (5-4, 1-3) denied them any chance of a second-half comeback as they fell 21-9, scoring the fewest goals they have this season while giving up the most.

“Carolina came to play. They did a great job, and they were on top of it, and they took advantage, especially early in the game,” SU head coach John Desko said. “We didn’t play with the poise that we needed to play with, especially early, to give more possessions to our offense.”

Syracuse has played games with more turnovers than against UNC, when it gave up the ball just 14 times. SU has also failed to clear the ball five times in a game on three other occasions. But the turnovers against UNC came at crucial times. Syracuse found its first goal, but Phaup dropped a too-short pass to Peter Dearth after winning the ensuing faceoff, and off UNC went to set up its offense.

In the second quarter, with Syracuse on a two-goal run, Varello and long-stick midfielder Brett Kennedy combined to win the ball off a scrappy faceoff. Another goal, and the Orange would find themselves in a similar spot to their game against Duke, when they erased a five-goal deficit at halftime to nearly steal a win at Koskinen Stadium in Durham, North Carolina.

But Kennedy, while stumbling forward, inexplicably tossed a pass back toward his own defensive half, which found nobody. Jacob Kelly jumped on the loose ball for the Tar Heels, and they soon scored. Kennedy picked up seven ground balls on Saturday, a season-high, mainly due to how SU adjusted its wings for faceoffs. But Kennedy also tossed three turnovers, his highest mark of the season.

The failed clears came at inopportune moments, too. Early in the first quarter, UNC knocked the ball out of Spencer Small’s stick on a clear attempt after the Orange’s typically susceptible off-ball defense made the play to prevent a Henry Schertzinger shot. The Tar Heels’ next shot ended up nestled on the side of the goal, and Syracuse was again unable to get the ball out. Cole Horan, who replaced an injured Nick DiPietro, couldn’t turn away and properly shield the ball from Will Bowen. And again, Kelly tracked down the loose ball.

Syracuse knew coming into the game that UNC would ride with 10 players, Desko said. It’s why Bowen, a defenseman, was even in the Syracuse half to pressure Horan. But with DiPietro and short-stick defensive midfielder Brandon Aviles out, Desko’s squad couldn’t adjust. And North Carolina’s game plan worked exactly as intended.

“We’ve got to turn around, know our next opponent, rise to the occasion and play a lot smarter lacrosse than we played today,” Desko said.

Most of Syracuse’s issues are common early in the season. Players are still getting used to packages, there’s an overall lack of game time for many of the younger players, and there’s an air of uncertainty when it comes to the clearing game and faceoffs. But it’s not early in the season anymore. There’s only two more scheduled games for Syracuse left and potentially a third that’ll get announced in the coming weeks to replace the canceled Utah contest.

Missed off-ball assignments in the season-opener, then chalked up to a lack of practice, have become the norm for the Orange. The adjustment to new faceoff rules never came for Phaup and only now seems to be arriving for Varello. When that’s the case, SU has to play perfect everywhere else.

Mitch Wykoff can’t fall down trying to change directions in the open field and almost turn the ball over. And when Lucas Quinn picks up the ensuing ground ball, he definitely can’t send a pass too high for Griffin Cook to grab in transition.

UNC came into the game with the nation’s No. 1 ranked offense, and Syracuse just continued to feed it chance after chance. And so the result, a 12-goal thumping for the Tar Heels’ first win in the Carrier Dome in 30 years, may be a surprise given the close proximity in talent among ACC teams this year. It’s not a surprise given Syracuse’s brand of play this year, though.

Published on April 17, 2021 at 9:03 pm

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