The Orange Move On to Foxboro

By Ben Glidden

The #1 seeded Syracuse Orange Men's Lacrosse team took down the Siena Saints by a comfortable margin in the first round of the NCAA Lacrosse Tournament tonight. In front of a home crowd in the Carrier Dome the Orange started off slow, but then took off in the second half to beat the Saints 10-4 and advance to the quarterfinals of the tournament.

Syracuse started off the game with two quick goals. The first came from senior Josh Amidon, assisted by Tommy Palasek. The second came about a minute later from Bobby Eilers, also assisted by Palasek. Palasek, the Johns Hopkins transfer, seemed to be all over the field tonight as he had a part in all of the first four goals, he scored one and assisted three. Palasek finished with four assists and one goal.

The halftime score of this game was a lot closer than many Orange fans anticipated. Siena was down just 4-2 as the teams headed to the locker room. While the Orange dominated just about every stat, Siena hung in the game on the shoulders of Tom Morr, the Saints goalie. At the half, Syracuse led 31-12 in shots. But the consistent play from Morr shut the Orange down as he finished with 19 saves.

The second half was a different story for the Orange. The defense looked just as strong but the offense came out firing and looked sharp. Syracuse scored four unanswered goals to go up 8-2. Those goals came from Josh Amidon, Steve Ianzito, JoJo Marasco and Stephen Keogh who was quiet in the first half but stepped up in the second. The Orange outshot the Saints 51-22, picked up 34 out of the 49 ground balls and cleared the ball 24 out of 25 times.

Next Sunday the Orange head to Foxboro, Massachusetts to take on the Maryland Terrapins in the quarterfinals. Foxboro has been good to Syracuse, winning National Championships there in 2008 and 2009. But the Terps will be a tough opponent as Maryland is a very experienced team.

"I think both of these teams have seen a lot of situations." Coach John Desko said. "So it should just be a great lacrosse game. The concern there is that the face off guy did a great job today. With those stats he could give their team a lot of possessions."

The Orange haven't lost in the quarterfinals in 25 straight attempts. Syracuse will try to uphold that impressive state next Sunday at Noon in Foxboro.

Photo Courtesy of Jason Rostkowski

NCAA Lacrosse Tournament Preview

By Louis Milman

Last Sunday night after the NCAA Tournament bracket for Men’s Lacrosse was released, 16 teams got to work preparing for postseason play. The Syracuse Orange were not just one of those 16 teams, they were the top ranked team. Syracuse will face Siena, the MAAC conference champion in the first round in one of the only two games that feature little chance of an upset.

In the first round, Hartford will face 2nd seeded Cornell, Hofstra will travel to 3rd ranked Johns Hopkins, Penn will play at #4 Notre Dame, #5 Duke hosts Delaware, Villanova travels to #6 Denver, #7 Virginia will play Bucknell, and #8 North Carolina plays host to Maryland.

Hartford and Siena stand little chance of upsetting the top two teams, but each of the remaining games stands a reasonable chance to upset the top teams as May Madness gets underway. With a chance to face Siena, Maryland, Duke, and Cornell in succession the Orange could follow the same path to the Championship that they did in 2009.

Syracuse’s senior laden team will look to win their 3rd National Championship in 4 seasons. Goalie and Co-Captain John Galloway told the Post Standard “We had our aspirations, we didn’t tell a lot of people, but we said we’re going to go four-for-four. So to lose last year really burned inside. But you know what? Three out of four ain’t bad.” Galloway is already the only Goalie to win a National Championship in his freshman year and then ever win another one.

“I think we had a very tough schedule this year,” Syracuse coach John Desko told reporters. “I’m sure a lot of teams that made the playoffs were on our schedule. I hope that prepares us for a new season in the Tournament. I know the feeling our players had walking off the field last year. The seniors have a couple of national-championship rings on their fingers and would like another one.”

Johns Hopkins and Virginia have been said to be on highest upset alert, facing difficult outs in Hofstra and Bucknell. The NCAA Tournament is likely to be bedlam much like March Madness was this past season. Syracuse opens up the tournament Sunday at 7:30 pm in the Carrier Dome.