Defense was once again strong for the Orange.

South Bend was the sight of a huge game for the Irish. While Syracuse is definitely in the NCAA Tournament due to their stellar resume and top five R.P.I., Notre Dame could have used another marquee win over a top flight program to assure them receiving one of the ten at large bids to the big dance. Notre Dame had only lost but a few games in South Bend over the last few years and in their new stadium that was over capacity with the Irish faithful. A good run and a great goalie was still not enough for ND however. Syracuse wins again 12 to six.

Syracuse sandwiched the day with five goals, and in between there was a tight game, but then Syracuse pulled away at the end. Notable to start the game was Joel White scoring first, firing with that long poll. Four more goals later and Syracuse found themselves up 5-0 with 3:28 to go in the first. Notre Dame would then score the two and only goals of the second quarter to make the game 5-2. Notre Dame would then start the second half by scoring two goals. Syracuse would come back with two goals of their own to go up 7-4. Notre Dame would then add two more with 3:06 to go in the third quarter. That would be the last goal that Notre Dame scored in the game. Syracuse would then score five to finish the game, one at the end of the third, and four in the fourth. The first of the last five was a ridiculous stick handling job to get free and then fire an underhand riser goal courtesy of Cody Jamieson. Stephen Keogh added one by being deadly near the crease. Finally, the last goal of the game came from a behind the back shot off a missed rebounding shot thanks to Keogh again. Syracuse finished with a six goal margin of victory. And yet again, Syracuse’s stingy defense left their opponents with less than ten goals.

Keogh was the scoring leader for Syracuse with four goals, and that led in points as well. Josh Amidon and Joel White each had two goals a piece. Chris Daniello had three assists in the game. Brian Megill was the leader in groundballs with six in this game. Jeremy Thompson was 2-6 at the X on the day. Tim Harder was 1-1. The real star was Gavin Jenkinson who was 11-15. John Galloway was excellent in the cage, making eight saves while only allowing six in all 60 minutes of work.

Notre Dame actually shot the ball more than Syracuse, 32 to 30. A refreshing change of pace from the previous few opponents Syracuse has faced. Syracuse picked up more groundballs than Notre Dame, 28 to 21. The Orange won 14 of the 22 faceoffs, while Notre Dame only won eight. Syracuse cleared slightly better than Notre Dame clearing 22-25, with ND clearing 14-19. The Extra Man attack of the Orange was successful, converting 3-4 chances, while Notre Dame only converted 2-7. Notre Dame had 9 saves and Syracuse had eight. Notre Dame had fewer turnovers with 18, while Syracuse had 22. The complete box score can be found here.

The statistics are a bit deceiving. Syracuse obviously won most of the faceoffs and played better most of the game. But Notre Dame was just better than Syracuse for most of the second quarter and some of the third. But in the rest of the game Syracuse was FAR better than Notre Dame and SU’s defense was once again brilliant in both close defense and goaltending, limiting ND to six goals and not allowing them to score in the first or final quarters. Joel White and Brian Megill were especially great in defending in this game. And you can’t say enough about Keogh’s shooting, Chris Daniello’s passing and field vision, and Cody Jamieson’s stick skills. Simply an outstanding day in another rainy game evening.

Not much changes in the polls in terms of the top few. Syracuse still remains #2 in both the IL Media Poll and the Coaches Poll. Virginia is #1 in both, however Syracuse is only one point behind Virginia in the Coaches poll with three first place votes to their four. Virginia has 14 first place votes to SU’s two in the media. Maryland, North Carolina, and Duke round out the top five in that order in both polls.

It goes without saying but we here at Orange::44 send our thoughts out to the University of Virginia community and the lacrosse community as a whole for the terrible tragedy at the school. It appears that both lacrosse teams at Virginia will continue their seasons and we wish them luck in dealing with the loss.

Now, in this all important time, we take a look at scores around the country. Both Army and Denver have already punched their tickets to the tournament but there is more punching to go. Games with Big East teams are in italics:

Wednesday April 28:

Towson 6 – Johns Hopkins 13

Friday April 30:

Bucknell 7 – Army 9

Delaware 14 – Penn State 10

Saturday May 1:

Hartford 14 – UMBC 12

Harvard 8 – Yale 9

Villanova 9 – Providence 5

Massachusetts 6 – Drexel 12

Cornell 10 – Princeton 9

Rutgers 9 – Georgetown 14

Towson 10 – Hofstra 12

Vermont 10 – Stony Brook 16

Hobart 17 – Air Force 6

St. John’s 6 – Sacred Heart 8

Sunday May 2:

Loyola 4 – Denver 12

Navy 8 – Army 11

The complete Inside Lacrosse scoreboard can be found here.

Now we look at the Big East Conference Standings with one week(end) to go in the regular season:

1. #2 Syracuse 12-1 (5-0)

2. #13/11 Villanova 10-4 (4-1)

3. #14 Georgetown 8-5 (4-1)

4. St. John’s 5-8 (2-3)

5. ARV/ #19 Notre Dame 7-6 (2-4)

6. Rutgers 5-8 (1-4)

7. Providence 0-13 (0-5)

Talking a little Bracketology, the upcoming winner of Villanova and Georgetown this weekend should get a bid due to the R.P.I. numbers of each team. Should be a great game. Syracuse will be represented in the tournament as a top 4 seed. Notre Dame has two good wins on their resume but they needed to beat SU. Now they are in the quagmire of bubble teams but most likely they are on the outside looking in. Selection Sunday is May 9th.

Syracuse has one final regular season game this Saturday against St. John’s in Queens at 1:00pm. This one should again be a nice game to keep Syracuse in shape for the upcoming NCAA Tournament, but this should not be a tough test. Even if Syracuse loses they should not fall more than the 4th spot in seeding but as of right now they are a 2 or a 3 seed and would like to stay there. Should be a nice one, if you can manage to watch it on television. As far as I can tell it isn’t on.

As for some other Big News tonight, Orange::44 Correspondent John Brennan and I will be doing a live podcast as we renew an old feature of this website, The Orange::44 Podcast. You can check it out live this evening or of course listen to it after the fact on this site or iTunes. Details to follow, but if you would like to listen live it will be at 9:00pm EST tonight. Click here for the show’s page. We will be talking about the Delone Carter case, conference realignment, and SU Lax and the upcoming NCAA Tournament.

Labels: Big East, Lacrosse, NCAA Tournament