Syracuse men’s lacrosse: NCAA Tournament Quarterfinals vs. Denver preview and game thread

The Orange and Pioneers meet in the quarters as ‘Cuse looks for their first trip to Memorial Day weekend since 2013.

Last weekend, the Syracuse Orange defeated Towson to win their first NCAA Tournament game since 2017.

Today, the Orange take the field for their NCAA Quarterfinal against the Denver Pioneers, looking to return to the Final Four for the first time since 2013.

‘Cuse and Denver make up the first quarterfinal of the day down in Towson, MD with a 12 PM face-off on ESPN U.

• All-time series: 5th meeting; Syracuse leads, 4-0
• Last meeting: Syracuse W, 9-8, on May 25, 2013 in NCAA Tournament Semifinals
• Denver this year: 12-3 overall, 5-1 Big East

Denver went 12-3 this season, and had four common opponents with the Orange. They beat Johns Hopkins, Utah and Cornell, and lost to Duke.

Last weekend, they jumped all over a hot Michigan team in the first round and sent them home with a 16-11 drubbing after starting the game on a 9-1 run.

Scouting Denver

This Denver team bears a somewhat similar resemblance to SU: they have a great face-off unit and an offense that, while not as high-powered, loves to get everyone involved and share the ball until they find the best shot.

They have a defense of big, physical players who make up the No. 2 scoring defense in the country that gives up only 9.27 goals per game. Last weekend, the Orange steamrolled the No. 1 scoring defense in Towson with 20 goals. What will they have in store today, and can they take better care of the ball?

Denver’s also a great man-up and man-down team, so penalties of any kind will be interesting in this game. The Pios are seventh in the nation with a .476 man-up conversion rate, while their man-down unit is the best in the nation with an incredible .833 success rate. They’ve only given up five goals in 30 chances this season.

FOGO Alec Stathakis is a one-man wrecking crew for their No. 4 ranked face-off unit (.595). He’s taken 360 of Denver’s 375 face-offs this year, winning 60.6 percent of them. The battle of Stathakis vs. Mason Kohn/John Mullen is going to be fascinating and huge if either can gain a decisive upper hand in the matchup.

The Pioneers’ offense doesn’t have anybody who stands out statistically in a big way. Their leading scorer, attacker JJ Sillstrop (27G, 17A, 44P), has exactly half as many points as SU leading scorer Joey Spallina.

But they’re well-balanced and they share the ball impressively. The Orange offense is universally lauded as one of the best in the country, if not the best, at sharing the ball and passing to create as a unit. Well, the ‘Cuse offense has assisted on 63.8 percent of their goals this season, and Denver isn’t too far behind with assists on 60.5 percent of their goals. Last weekend, they assisted on 12 of their 16 goals against Michigan (75 percent).

Michael Lampert (19G, 22A, 41P) is their second-leading scorer and leading distributor, and Noah Manning (22G, 9A, 31P) and Cody Malawsky (20G, 9A, 29P) are a couple of sharp shooters at 44.9 and 47.6 percent shooting, respectively. Mic Kelly (19G, 7A, 26P) is coming off a huge game in which he led the Pios with five points last weekend against the Wolverines.

Goalie Malcolm Kleban has started all 15 games this season and has a .507 save percentage and a 9.22 goals-against average.