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This wasn’t supposed to be a big challenge. But for Syracuse, there was still a need to show up Tuesday night in two areas in particular.

St. Bonaventure is in just its fifth season as a Division-I lacrosse program. The Bonnies hadn’t faced a power conference opponent prior to Tuesday, and had lost three games in a row. That gave the Orange a prime opportunity to work on solving two consistent puzzles they’ve struggled with all season: winning face-offs and scooping up ground balls. SU is bottom-ten nationally in both categories and lost each battle against the Pride. 

Syracuse (5-4, 0-2 Atlantic Coast), though, showed improvement against St. Bonaventure (1-6), with face-off specialist Johnny Richiusa winning 10-of-17 draws (58.8%) —  his best mark this season — and SU collecting more ground balls. It helped alleviate the constant stress goalie Will Mark and the Orange’s defense has faced this season, and led to a season-high 22 goals. Fourteen different players scored, and SU never trailed in its easy 22-6 win. 

“I was extremely happy, top to bottom,” head coach Gary Gait said postgame. “That was a good, solid win for us.” 

Richiusa went 5-for-17 at the X against Hofstra — and struggled in prior games against Holy Cross and No. 9 Maryland too — but had no problem winning consistently on Tuesday. On multiple draws, he scooped the ball up and tossed in the air, into his own stick, to jumpstart Syracuse’s attack. He won the first face-off of the game, leading to an Alex Simmons top-shelf goal 37 seconds into the contest. 

SU works on face-offs every day in practice, Gait said, hoping it’ll translate to success in games. Tuesday night, it did. 

“We do everything that I know how to do to try and improve and get better (with face-offs),” Gait said. “Today we just did a better job. The guys won some clean face-offs, picked up some ground balls, and that helped.” 

SU took Richiusa out near the end of the third quarter, bringing on sophomore Jack Fine in his place, and volunteer assistant coach Nick Acquaviva gave Richiusa a fist pump as he ran off the field — a physical representation of the team’s appreciation of his solid performance. 

One area that hasn’t been a concern for Syracuse this season has been its goaltending. Mark has been one of the nation’s best — the leader in saves, and fourth-best in save percentage — and stopped eight of the 11 shots he faced Tuesday, exiting after three quarters with the game in hand. 

On one rush early in the second quarter, Brady Wijbrandts got a clean look at goal, but Mark quickly moved his stick to the right and trapped the ball. Later, Mark made a nice save on Kyle Pepper’s shot early in the third quarter, leading to a quick clear from Jake Murphy and a Max Rosa goal off the crossbar. 

St. Bonaventure tied the game at one early in the first quarter, but the Orange responded with three straight scores. Jackson Birtwistle dodged left and ripped a shot into the top right corner for his 16th goal of the season. Less than two minutes later, Joey Spallina, stationed at X, passed to Finn Thomson, who spun, looked for an angle and after finding one, stuck the ball high in the center of the net. Then, just over three minutes into the second quarter, St. Bonaventure — focusing most of its energy on Spallina — let Griffin Cook get right in front of goal and score. 

The Bonnies’ decision to sell out and stop Spallina wasn’t necessarily a bad plan — the freshman flashed his potential at Hofstra, finishing with seven points and a season-high 10 shots. 

In the first half, the Bonnies showed Spallina their plan for the night. The attack held the ball at X, and St. Bonaventure sent goalie Cristofero Cucciuffo and a long stick out to stop him. Still, the freshman dodged past both and got in front of goal, where he seemingly scored on a low shot that sent off the JMA Wireless Dome’s goal alarm. 

The score was called back for a crease violation, but it showed how easy it was for the Orange to get good scoring looks — and how hard it was Cucciuffo to stop them. He finished with just three saves against 20 shots on goal. 

By halftime, Syracuse led 8-3, and the goals only kept coming. Gait told the team at halftime they had to bring intensity regardless of who they were playing, and couldn’t play at 3/4 speed. Gait wanted the Orange to prove they can turn it on when they want to. 

And that they did. SU scored three goals in just over a minute during one third-quarter stretch, beginning when Alex Simmons caught a pass from Owen Hiltz and dropped 45 degrees to his right to notch a top-shelf goal. Richiusa won two face-offs after that, and Spallina put the Orange up 11-3 after Spallina fed Rhoa, who swung his stick to his left for a highlight-reel behind-the-back goal. Eleven more scores were added to that, and SU’s 11-0 run through the third and fourth quarters put the game away. 

The Orange turned to their bench in the fourth quarter, allowing five players to record their first goals of the season. Gait said he was happy with how well the reserves executed, and how unselfish the offense was overall. 

“This year’s team has definitely just been really unselfish,” Cook said. “Everybody just wants everybody else to do really well.” 

St. Bonaventure’s frustration appeared to reach a peak with five minutes left in the fourth quarter, when freshman midfielder Patrick Carpenter — who scored two of Bonaventure’s six goals — came off the field and slammed his stick into the wall behind the team’s bench, eliciting a loud thud that rang through the Dome.

Several players responded by walking over to Carpenter to pick him up, but on the field, the Bonnies had no answer for the Orange’s two-hour onslaught. Whatever Syracuse sent on goal usually went in, and Richiusa’s repeated face-off wins — plus an advantage in balls scooped off the turf for the first time in over a month— meant the barrage seemingly never ended. 

By game’s end, SU had its largest margin of victory this season.

Published on March 21, 2023 at 8:12 pm

Contact Connor: [email protected] | @csmith17_