Dominant Defense Paces Syracuse Men's Lacrosse's Impressive Win Over Duke

The Orange knocked off a top five opponent in the Blue Devils.

Syracuse men's lacrosse picked up its most impressive win of the season with a 10-4 victory over #4 Duke Wednesday night in the JMA Wireless Dome. The Orange is now 8-2 on the season overall while the Blue Devils fell to 8-2. Next up for Syracuse is at rival Hobart on Saturday.

As SU students made their way back to the 315 after spring break, they had a mid-week Diaper Dandy (© Dick Vitale) matchup awaiting them as the fifth ranked Orange faced off against fourth ranked Duke. There was a lot of star power between the two clubs, with Joey Spallina and reigning Tewaaraton winner Brennan O’Neill, but neither of those guys got on the scoreboard in the first twelve minutes, and lots of eyes were on Mason Kohn and Jake Noso as two of the best FOGO guys in the country. Still, SU led 3-1 after the first despite 7 consecutive faceoffs won by Naso, with Michael Leo’s two goals providing the offensive pop for the Orange.

The aggressiveness of the Orange, particularly Caden Kol, seemed to bother Duke’s number one ranked offense, and Will Mark’s [10 first half saves] stellar play in the first half proved to be the spear of a stingy Syracuse defense. 

The second half opened up with SU controlling the action -- three straight faceoff wins from Mason Kohn, one that he immediately took in for an unassisted goal to put SU up 6-2, and an Owen Hiltz goal had the Blue Devils on their heels and down four less than three minutes into the second half. A Joey Spallina assist for Jackson Birtwistle’s ninth goal of the year pushed SU up by 5, and Duke looked to be unraveling a bit in the Dome from that point.

A Josh Zwada goal briefly cut the Orange lead to five in the middle of the third quarter, but a beautiful Joey Spallina for a Christian Mule goal pushed the lead back to six before the start of the fourth. The momentum and the snowball effect was too much to overcome for the Blue Devils. Owen Hiltz completed his hat trick in the 4th, and Gerry Gait got his second straight ranked victory, and first 8-2 start in his coaching career as the Orange beat the Blue Devils 10-4.

Brennan O’Neill registered his first and only goal midway through the fourth quarter, but it was still far and away the best and complete performance of the season by the Syracuse defense forcing the worst offensive performance by the Blue Devils and O’Neill this year. 

SU improved to 5-2 in matchups against Duke when both teams are ranked within the top 5 of the USILA poll, and Duke loses their first road game of the year after coming in 3-0 in true road games this season.