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This was different. That’s what head coach Gary Gait and multiple players said after their third straight win last week to improve to 6-4. This team was going to close the gap against ranked teams and reclaim its spot as one of the best lacrosse programs in the nation. Maybe not all at once, but gradually, and it was going to begin on Saturday against No. 3 Notre Dame. A win wasn’t guaranteed, but a better result than last year’s 22-6 and 18-11 losses to the Fighting Irish was.

Billed as a chance to show that Syracuse could stand with the best of the best, a 5-1 run at the end of the second quarter carried momentum — and just a two-goal deficit — into the third quarter. With a tantalizing goal right in front of the crease from Finn Thomson and a powerful shot from the outside by Alex Simmons, the Orange sat in an 11-10 hole. Then, after a defensive stand from Saam Olexo and a quick pass from Cole Kirst, Olexo fired through his third goal of the season to tie the game at 11.

Thomson was right in front of the crease with 12 minutes remaining during a 12-11 Syracuse lead. Unguarded, he dropped the ball into the net and excitedly jumped up thinking he’d just extended the Orange’s lead to two goals. But the referee had called off the goal, the ball making it into Liam Entenmann’s stick as it was crossing the line into the net. Gait said the referees told him the ball needed to be loose when it crosses the line. Notre Dame noticed before Syracuse did and sprinted back on offense in hopes of catching the Orange off guard.

Nick Harris, the man that was supposed to be on Thomson when he dropped in what he thought was his second goal of the afternoon, scored the ensuing goal to even the score at 12 apiece. Chris Kavanagh then gave the Fighting Irish the lead back with a quick goal, and Jake Taylor used a nice pass from Eric Dobson to build that lead that just kept increasing.

“We ran out of possessions and gas. It was a matter of second half faceoffs and defense,” Gait said.

It was closer than both opportunities last season and proved Syracuse had made massive strides from last year. But once again, the Orange held a lead and watched it dissipate in the fourth quarter. The first quarter led Syracuse into a hole that only a surprising run in the second quarter could erase, but it couldn’t erase the facts: Notre Dame is better, and the Orange’s defense can’t hold up for four quarters. Syracuse (6-5, 0-3 Atlantic Coast) will remain winless against ranked opponents, dropping — once again — a close, 20-12 loss to No. 3 Notre Dame (7-1, 1-1 ACC).

The second season under Gait was going to be about a few things. Following a 4-10 season, including six straight losses to end the season and a near sweep against ranked teams, Syracuse was going to need to show that, despite a largely underclassmen team, it was heading in the right direction. After going 5-0 in a COVID-19 shortened season, the once dominant SU program meandered its ways to near-irrelevancy, prompting the retirement of former head coach John Desko and the in-house hire. Gait, and the addition of the No. 1 recruit in the country, took the program in a positive direction.

It started early, with the first two goals coming in just over two and a half minutes, easy chances after strong defense stands wound down the shot clock, daggers that ultimately proved too much to overcome. By the end of the first quarter, the Fighting Irish had already cracked open a 6-2 lead. Brendan Aviles threw Quinn McCahon to the ground and pounced on him in hopes of causing a turnover, but McCahon got up and sprinted down the left side toward the crease. Jake Taylor stood at arms length away from Will Mark, and collected a no-look pass from McCahon, dumping in the shot to begin the afternoon.

“It was make it, take it there for a while,” Gait said.

Syracuse isn’t known for its defense this year, and has allowed 9.8 goals per game throughout the first 10 contests of the season. The late-game defensive breakdowns have continued to hinder the Orange throughout the season, leading to close losses against Johns Hopkins, Maryland and Duke. Their offense has been flashy, but their defense leads to early deficits and teams keeping pace with Syracuse long enough to eventually pull ahead and win. Notre Dame wasn’t going to be any easier than the four ranked teams SU lost to earlier this year, flashing a dynamic scoring unit led by Pat and Chris Kavanagh.

The Kavanagh’s run around and bait Syracuse’s defense, lulling them into submission before springing to life, finding an open man and pouncing on the net for a goal. Jake Taylor, who ended the game with four goals, situated himself next to the crease and waited for the pass down low. The final line of the Orange’s defense looked lost. At one point in the second quarter, Olexo ran away from Taylor after he received a pass, thinking someone else had the attack covered.

Pat and Chris didn’t need the crease to open up and the Orange to have slow feet while defending juke moves to get open and create scoring opportunities. But the openings were there anyways, granted by the Orange’s struggling defenders who were usually out of place and slow to recover.

“It’s hard to not give up that lead when you don’t have the ball … when you’re not able to score down on the other end,” Gait said.

Then, spurred by a holding call on Pat and a concurring unnecessary roughness call on Chris, Syracuse rattled off a 5-1 run toward the end of the second quarter that pulled the score to 9-7. Four different goal scorers sprung the Orange’s slow-moving offense from the first quarter to life. The creative offense based on electrifying players and Canadians with a box lacrosse background kept thumping away at Notre Dame, mounting a comeback that hardly saw the Fighting Irish maintain possession. The offense that put up 56 goals in the last three games was back, attempting to erase a slow first quarter that saw it garner just five shots on goal and two goals.

For a few minutes, the old Syracuse, the one that beat the Fighting Irish in 2018, had returned. Then, after the halftime break, Jack Fine committed a faceoff violation, and the Fighting Irish rattled off two unanswered goals. The No. 3 team seemed, for a moment, to settle back in and retake its place as a thorn to Syracuse. The Orange responded by tying the game.

Syracuse isn’t going to rid itself of a four-win season in 11 games, nor was it going to revert back to its mid-2000s success. For a program reeling from a great deal of overhaul and tumultuous last few seasons, a win might have meant the start of something new, the first marquee win of the Gait era. A loss still highlights the glaring holes of a Syracuse defense that has trouble recovering and an offense and faceoff unit that can, at times, stagnate. This was different. The Orange were closer for three quarters. Then they allowed nine unanswered goals in an ugly fourth quarter and reverted to last year’s SU.

“The idea is, you try to win some faceoffs. In the fourth quarter, we didn’t really win any.”

Published on April 1, 2023 at 4:24 pm

Contact Anthony: [email protected] | @anthonyalandt