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Last season, Syracuse played ten ranked games, winning just one of them. The Orange finished the season losing six in a row — five coming against top-20 teams. That trend continued early this spring, when SU played four consecutive games against ranked teams. The result was the same: all finished as defeats.

But after the loss to Johns Hopkins two weeks ago, Syracuse got a chance to get back on track against three middling nonconference opponents. With that final contest concluding Saturday — to the tune of an 18-7 win over Hobart — the Orange said they had gotten back on track, bolstering their confidence ahead of gauntlet No. 2 — a five-game, regular-season concluding stretch that includes two trips to top-five teams, and two others to face top-20 squads, but begins with perhaps the toughest test of them all: a home matchup against No. 1 Notre Dame next Saturday.

Postgame Saturday, head coach Gary Gait was asked what’s different about this year’s team compared to last season’s, which finished with a program-worst 10 losses.

“We are a different team this year. You know this is…” Gait said, pausing, as he looked down the podium, where two players flanked him on each side.

Gait looked first toward goalie Will Mark, an LIU transfer who added to his nation-leading saves mark with 14 against Hobart, and then to Michael Leo, a true freshman who had just notched his first career hat trick. Then Gait’s head swiveled to his left, where he looked at Owen Hiltz and Joey Spallina, two talented attacks who combined for nine points on Saturday, but weren’t even scoring options SU had last season.

“This is a completely different group of guys up here,” Gait said. “In our first run against the top teams in the country, we came up short a little bit, but at least we found out that we were competitive, and we could be there and give ourselves a chance. So now, hopefully, we’ve learned enough to know what we need to do to get over the hump and pull a couple of upsets.”

Those players around Gait agreed this team has a chance to, as Mark said, “shake up the room a little bit” over the next five weeks. There’s the Senior Day game against the Fighting Irish, followed by four road trips (in order) to No. 20 Princeton, No. 14 North Carolina, No. 3 Virginia and No. 4 Duke. The Tar Heels and Blue Devils both beat SU earlier this season. And the Orange haven’t taken down a ranked team since beating then-No. 10 Duke last March — a streak of nine losses in a row.

Yet, Syracuse still believes it can reverse that.

“We’re just going to battle until our last game,” Hiltz said. “Just going to try to prove everyone wrong these last couple weeks.”

Facing an uphill battle to win the Atlantic Coast Conference, and with only eight at-large bids available in the NCAA Tournament, Gait knows every game Syracuse plays from here is a playoff game. He built the schedule like this so SU could ease up on the pressure it would face during its two difficult stretches, and have three games in between to build confidence and improve its deficiencies.

“Now it’s time to go hunting and come up with a few upsets, and try and give ourselves a chance at the tournament,” Gait said. “(This stretch) played out exactly the way I hoped it would.”

That’s because the Orange found they have Mark, a stellar goalie who held all three teams to single-digit goals, and a young, skillful attack — led primarily by Hiltz and Spallina — that made no-look, behind-the-back goals look easy against Hobart and topped 15 goals three straight times. And this season, they’ve also found Leo, a midfielder who was their seventh-best recruit in this year’s class, yet has turned into one of their most reliable offensive options.

Leo scored all three of his goals in the first half, dodging to his left every single time. Two of the scores snuck just under the crossbar, while one dove toward the ground and bounced past goalie Elhanan Wilson. Hobart didn’t slide quickly to Leo, especially in the first half, Gait said, which allowed the freshman to get his hands free and fire off easy shots. Leo liked his matchups against short stick midfielders, and chose to attack them one-on-one.

“Hopefully he’ll continue that and we hope to see three goals next week,” Gait said with a smile. “No pressure.”

Leo was a weapon Syracuse didn’t have when it lost to Notre Dame twice last season by a combined score of 40-17. In fact, neither were Hiltz, Spallina or Mark.

The defense, Mark said, has executed soundly recently because of its preparation — especially the time it’s put in outside of practice. Mark and defenders have watched lots of film on matchups and teams’ overall attacks, time that has paid off during this winning streak.

A question still looming for Syracuse, though, is at the X, where the Orange have lost in seven of their last ten games. That included Saturday, when regular starter Johnny Richuissa got pulled after losing his first four face-offs, replaced by backup Jack Fine, who finished 9-for-17. SU gave Richuissa the first few, hoping that he’d find a rhythm, and when he didn’t, turned to Fine. And when Fine started losing in the fourth quarter, Gait swapped them again. Gait said both are working hard, and is hopeful that’ll soon pay off.

Before Saturday’s game, former longtime Syracuse coaches Roy Simmons Jr. and Roy Simmons III met with the team in the locker room. They, along with former head coach John Desko, stood on the sideline before the game. It was an opportunity, Gait said, for Syracuse to play for them — some of the icons of the program — and beat a longtime rival.

And when the Orange host Notre Dame in a week, they’ll be playing for a chance to end a losing streak against the nation’s best, to win a de-facto playoff game and, perhaps, surprise many in college lacrosse.

Published on March 25, 2023 at 5:42 pm

Contact Connor: csmith49@syr.edu | @csmith17_