Syracuse men’s lacrosse: Orange outplayed by Cornell, 17-12, on damp day on Long Island

It was not the Orange’s day as the Upstate battle on the Island went the way of the Big Red.

The current versions of the Syracuse Orange and the Cornell Big Red are built for a track meet, especially against each other.

On Saturday afternoon on Long Island, the No. 4 Orange had trouble keeping pace with the No. 1 Big Red, ultimately falling, 17-12, to end their six-game winning streak and drop to 9-3 on the year.

After a sloppy start in the damp conditions by both teams, the game hit an early fever pitch just over six minutes in when CJ Kirst signaled an early trend by scoring his first goal thanks to a badly timed slide from Billy Dwan. That goal kicked off a stretch in which six goals were scored in 2:52, two by Syracuse sandwiched between two on either side by Cornell for a 4-2 Big Red lead.

The end of that spurt kicked off a six-goal run by Cornell when their offense took control of the game and pushed them out to an 8-2 lead that, try as they might, ‘Cuse would never fully recover from.

And try, they did. After going more than 15 minutes without a goal, the Orange scored three straight goals to regain a footing in the game. Owen Hiltz spearheaded that charge, with back-to-back goals built entirely on effort where he attacked a short-stick matchup to finish with authority. A Joey Spallina man-up goal brought the lead down to 8-5, but CJ Kirst was back with a man-up goal of his own that was his fourth of the half to send the Big Red to the locker room with a 9-5 advantage.

The third quarter was all over the place, as SU mounted another charge with two quick goals in two minutes out of the break, including a nice connection from Sammy English to Michael Leo and and shot from deep by Luke Rhoa.

That again brought it down to 9-7 Cornell, but the Big Red were quick to answer with two quick goals that eventually turned into a 4-0 run thanks to a pair of extra-man opportunities which pushed the lead all the way to a commanding 13-7 with 6:18 left in the third.

The Orange showed great fight in this game, and immediately pushed back with a four-goal run of their own to close the quarter. English and Tyler Cordes scored their first goals, and Hiltz capped the run with a rocket shot on the man-up for his fourth of the day. That made a game of it at 13-11 heading to the fourth.

As they had for much of the afternoon, all the bounces went the way of Cornell in the final frame as the Big Red won the quarter, 4-1, and the game, 17-12.

By most of the numbers, this played out very evenly most of the way through. ‘Cuse won the face-off battle, 17-16, but Cornell won the ground ball battle, 38-36. ‘Cuse led in shots, 43-40, and shots on goal, 26-24.

The big difference, however, was in cage, where Cornell’s Wyatt Knust made 14 saves with a 53.8 save percentage versus Jimmy McCool’s seven saves and 30.4 save percentage. To be fair to Jimmy, Cornell’s offense was generating much cleaner looks at goal than SU’s offense, so a lot of Knust’s saves were more comfortable than Jimmy was faced with, but the bottom line is that that’s an untenable difference in cage to be able to come away with a win.

The Orange did give great effort and hustle as they usually do, leading to 18 Cornell turnovers for the game. In fact, six of their eight caused turnovers were made by SU offensive players after a failed scoring opportunity to quickly get the ball back.

But they also committed too many penalties, questionable calls aside, with eight for the game. Cornell absolutely punished them for it, going 4-for-7 on the man-up and looking very smooth in doing so. The Big Red offense doesn’t need any help scoring with an extra man on the field, they’re doing just fine 6-on-6 and giving them seven man-up chances is way too much.

Owen Hiltz (4G, 2A) led the way in this one with four goals and six points, with Luke Rhoa (3G, 1A) and Michael Leo (2G, 2A) adding four each. Sammy English (1G, 1A) had a goal and an assist, and Joey Spallina (1G) was held to one man-up goal on just three shots for the game.

Ultimately, there was just too much Cornell on the afternoon in this one, most specifically on the offensive end. CJ Kirst and Ryan Goldstein both finished with eight points a piece. While the Orange did their best to keep up, and impressively went on a few runs to try to get back in the game, they put themselves in too big a hole with that 6-0 run Cornell had from the mid-first to the mid-second quarter.

Getting down by six, SU never got closer than two the rest of the way. They had a few runs in them, but when you give Cornell and their offense a head start in a track meet, it’s pretty much game over unless every bounce goes your way the rest of the game. And that definitely wasn’t the case for ‘Cuse today.

The Orange will be back in action next weekend when they head south for a road meeting with the Duke Blue Devils on Saturday, April 19 at 2 PM on the ACC Network.