Syracuse Men's Lacrosse Has Plenty to Learn From Loss Against No. 1 Maryland
Players and Syracuse men's lacrosse coach Gary Gait said there's a lot to learn from the group's 14-10 loss to No. 1 Maryland on Sunday.
It was SU's first big game in a while. Tucker Dordevic, whose five goals led Syracuse's offense, said so after the game.
"To be honest, I just needed to settle in a little bit," Dordevic said. "I just had to take a step back, breathe a little bit and I started feeling pretty good as the game continued."
The Orange offense that scored 28 times, including nine goals in the first quarter against Holy Cross the weekend before, stalled against UMD through the first 15 minutes. The Terps never trailed against No. 9 Syracuse in the Carrier Dome's Top-10 matchup.
Owen Seebold and Brendan Curry, two SU captains who scored five and four goals against Holy Cross respectively, didn’t score against UMD. Instead, Lucas Quinn scored three goals, while the offensive unit struggled to possess the ball and failed to create opportunities off dodges.
"Every game brings you things you can learn from and stuff to adjust and fix," Quinn said. "We're going to figure out what we did well, what we didn’t do well in this game. There's definitely a lot to learn from, but we're moving on."
During the week leading up to the game, Gait said he expected a dog fight against the top team in the country. But the Orange found themselves down 5-0 early in the second quarter. Gait said he thought the team responded okay to the early deficit, but the five goals were hard to overcome.
SU's offense ran through Dordevic. UMD goalie Logan McNaney made 12 saves, five of which came in the first quarter on contested shots far from the crease.
"We just came out a little, I think, almost anxious. Like we were not sure what to expect, instead of coming out and just doing what we practiced," Gait said. "Once we got a little bit of flow going, we were fine, especially on the offensive end."
Still, Maryland only put three more shots on goal than the Orange. Eight different Terps scored compared to the Orange's four.
Syracuse's defense and goalie Bobby Gavin held Maryland under 20 goals for the first time this season. Gait said the unit will improve on miscommunications and missed slides through film study and practice.
"I think this was a positive step in the right direction, to be able to compete and not give up a game, and not just quit," Gait said.
"So that's the first step. And now they have to start building off that and understanding that if they can just execute and make a play, and they go into the game believing that they're going to win the game, it'll allow them to not have those lulls where they allow the other team to make runs and pull away from us. I'm expecting that we'll learn a lot from this and it’s going to help us next week."
That next test comes this Saturday. Syracuse will play No. 2 Virginia on the road.
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