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Owen Hiltz spent the offseason determined to recapture his agile and aggressive freshman-year explosiveness. After years of relying on long-range shooting and skip passes which resulted in stationary playmaking, he committed to a more rigorous training regimen, pushing himself in the weight room and on the field. The result? A rejuvenated redshirt senior who is quicker, stronger and more aggressive than ever.
The results were immediate. Syracuse head coach Gary Gait called it Hiltz’s “best fall ever,” noticing a quicker first step and renewed confidence. Offensive coordinator Pat March agreed, saying Hiltz looked “young and agile” again. He’s proven it to start the season, ranking second on the Orange with 26 points and leading the team with 15 goals through six games.
In SU’s seventh game of the season, a bitter rivalry it circles on its calendar each campaign, the revitalized Hiltz continued his terrific form. With starting attack Finn Thomson sidelined with an injury, Hiltz poured in a game-high four goals to power No. 11 Syracuse’s (5-2, 0-0 Atlantic Coast) 13-10 win over No. 7 Johns Hopkins (5-2, 0-0 Big Ten) Sunday.
Though Hiltz’s magnum opus Sunday wasn’t a goal. It was an assist to Luke Rhoa on the game-winner, when SU took a 11-10 lead with 6:49 remaining in the fourth quarter. Hiltz, whose lacrosse IQ March lauded, said he noticed the Blue Jays frequently left their backside open on defense. So, he fed Rhoa on the backdoor, and the midfielder rifled a shot past goalie Luke Staudt.
“Coach March’s offense, his preparation for the game, kind of how the defense plays the game was spot on,” Hiltz said postgame.
March’s work was cut out for him against the Blue Jays. Not only was Thomson out — Gait said postgame he’ll be “out for a while” — but JHU’s defense only gave up 9.83 goals per game entering the contest, top 30 nationally.
Early on, Syracuse made those issues seem inconsequential, as it jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first six minutes. Hiltz converted the third finish of that early run.
It started with Trey Deere, who started in Thomson’s place, picking up a key ground ball to elongate the Orange’s possession. The ball eventually worked its way around to Hiltz on the right wing. Given a bit of room, Hiltz laced a finish into the bottom left corner of the net.
“(March) had our scout team run the exact same thing (Johns Hopkins did),” Hiltz said. “So I mean our ball movement, doing the fundamentals right allowed me to get my hands free, and I just placed it where the goalie wasn’t.”
Hiltz made it sound simple. And he made it look like it was, too. He leveled the score at 4-4 with 3:16 to go in the first half, ending a four-goal Blue Jay run. The attack passed the ball over to Tyler McCarthy on the left flank. McCarthy reset it to Tyler Cordes, who found Hiltz cutting toward the center. In one fluid motion, Hiltz took the ball in stride and fired it into the bottom right corner of the goal.
Hiltz, like Syracuse as a whole, was ineffective in the second quarter. JHU slowed the game’s pace down and the Orange only mustered two shots on goal, as Johns Hopkins outscored them 2-1 in the quarter to build a 6-5 halftime lead.
After Gait changed Syracuse’s halftime routine, as the Orange spent less time in the locker room and returned the field quickly to run drills and regain their focus, Hiltz tried to prevent SU’s stultifying offense from continuing into the third quarter. Thirty seconds in, Hiltz worked off a Rhoa screen on the right side. The senior showcased his mobility with a shot on the move that rattled the crossbar — the third time the Orange hit the woodwork Sunday.
With under two minutes to go and SU trailing 8-6, Hiltz didn’t play a direct role in sparking SU’s three-goal run in 52 seconds, though he started the flood when his shot on the move went wide. Off the restart, Joey Spallina quickly passed to Cordes, and the midfielder converted the goal.
Hiltz rang the post again five minutes into the fourth quarter, aiming to take the lead. He wasn’t deterred by the second near-miss of the game.
“Most of the shots we took today were pretty good shots,” Hiltz said. “They definitely got some sticks on our hands when we’re shooting, so we missed wide. But that’s kind of what the game plan was. Take those shots when you can and bury them.”
Hiltz kept shooting, and it paid off. He regained Syracuse’s lead at 10-9 in the fourth quarter off a quick-witted run to the backdoor for a close-range finish from a Spallina feed from X. Then, Hiltz played the provider to find Rhoa.
The redshirt senior combined his revitalized game while pulling from his bag of tricks from last season, when he led the Orange with 38 goals, to add a cushion to their lead with a long-range goal. He raced downhill after receiving a pass from a Spallina pass from X. His thunderous shot found the back of the net for his 19th goal of the campaign.
As his shot bulged the goal, he was hit hard by JHU’s Colby Weishaar and tumbled to the turf. But he quickly got back up to celebrate with his team. This, after all, is the re-enlivened Hiltz. He’s a force on the move. He’s strengthened his build. And he now embraces contact without hesitation, unconcerned about re-aggravating an old injury.
As Syracuse builds off its first top-10 win of the season and enters the back half of its regular season schedule, which is loaded with more ranked teams, a hardened and hungry Hiltz is primed to lead the charge.
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