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Chase Scanlan received a pass from Stephen Rehfuss and fired at Holy Cross goalie A.J. Fox. It was a sloppy shot, but it was also his fourth of the afternoon, and he had yet to score. Nearly 14 minutes into the game, Syracuse hadn’t scored yet, either. 

The ball bounced gently past Fox to break the scoreless deadlock. Syracuse was just a minute and two seconds away from its first scoreless quarter since 2019 against Duke. When the bench cheered, it was a sigh of relief for SU.

Despite Saturday’s win, Syracuse (4-1, 1-0 Atlantic Coast) had its worst offensive half of the season. Holy Cross (1-3, 0-2 Patriot) held the Orange to its fewest first-half goals (six) since it scored twice in the first half against Army last season. But a second-half explosion by Scanlan tied a career-high in goals with seven, and the Orange won 15-6.

“He just kept shooting. Sometimes you miss a couple early, or the goalie stops you, and you tend to not take those shots, but he kept shooting,” head coach John Desko said.

For the first time in years, Holy Cross managed to hang with a top-tier opponent, even for just a half. The Crusaders had 30 straight losing seasons between 1989 and 2018 before finishing .500 in 2019 and 4-3 in the shortened 2020 season. Patriot League games against Army and Navy are perennial blowouts.

Syracuse seemed like it was going to get off to a quick start, though. Immediately on the first faceoff, Peter Dearth fired a pass to Owen Hiltz on the outside. Hiltz’s shot is usually deadly, but Fox moved quick enough to make the save just seconds into the game. He made another on the next possession, and then another. Fox saved SU’s first five shots on goal before Scanlan finally beat him. 

Fox, who was making just his fourth career start, had a career-high 18 saves. Desko and Scanlan attributed part of that to Syracuse’s poor shooting, though. Of SU’s 65 total shots, just 34 hit the target. With nine minutes to go in the first quarter, Trimboli attempted a jumping tight-angle shot that bounced several feet in front of the goal and rolled off. 

“We had some good opportunities we didn’t capitalize (on). I mean we took 65 shots today,” Desko said. “Normally when you’re getting that many shots, you probably would be in the 20s.”

With seven seconds left in the half, Scanlan started from the X and ran around the front, firing a diving shot toward the goal. He rolled over his shoulder after hitting the ground and shot up to celebrate as the quarter ran out.

“It was big to get another one before we went in at halftime, when goals were coming hard for us,” Desko said. “Maybe that helped spark us in the way we were coming out in the second half.”

It took 14 minutes to score in the first half, but Syracuse came out aggressively to start the second. Brett Kennedy picked up a ground ball a minute in, and Trimboli scored three minutes later. But the ball didn’t leave Holy Cross’s defensive side of the field. 

Syracuse was aggressive, but it still struggled to find the back of the net. Once after a faceoff during that three-minute period, SU shot four times without scoring. Fox didn’t do anything, either — all four shots went wide. On the fifth shot, though, Hiltz finally scored to give Syracuse an 8-0 lead. Syracuse scored five more times that quarter, Scanlan twice more, and was able to put the game away.

“(I) just keep playing my game and letting the game come to me, and I knew eventually they were going to fall,” Scanlan said.

Jamie Trimboli scored twice in Syracuse’s win. Courtesy of Scott Schild | Syracuse.com

Scanlan’s been quiet most of this year. He had one goal in each of the first two games followed by two multi-goal games against Vermont and Stony Brook. After the game against Stony Brook, Desko said that Scanlan was starting to settle down. That showed Saturday, when Scanlan took 15 shots, the most of any Syracuse player this season.

“It was just going back to practice and working on the mechanics and fundamentals of my shot, kind of getting that confidence back, too,” Scanlan said. “I’m known as a shooter, so just going out there and playing my game, it kind of came to me today.”

With just under five minutes left in the third quarter, Kennedy ran downfield after a ground ball pickup, successfully clearing it. He found Scanlan outside, who shot and scored. Desko subbed him out after that.

Syracuse was supposed to play No. 20 Hofstra this week, ending a string of unranked opponents and serving as a final test before traveling at No. 2 Duke, possibly the Orange’s biggest game of the regular season. Instead, they played Holy Cross in another straightforward win.

The Orange head into the Duke game on a four-game win streak — but they haven’t faced a ranked opponent since Feb. 27.

Syracuse has done enough against Stony Brook, Vermont and Holy Cross, but that may not translate against one of the best attack lines in the country. Scanlan just had his best game of the season after a slow start on Saturday. The defense, while not perfect, has shown week-to-week improvements. 

With a week of short rest before a Thursday game, Syracuse is preparing for its quickest turnaround between games so far this season. With the up-and-down play SU has shown all season, it’s impossible to guess what version of the Orange will show up to Koskinen Stadium next week.

“Duke’s always my favorite game,” Drake Porter said. “As a team we’re excited, but at the same time, we’ve got to handle it like any other week.”

Scanlan emphasized that Holy Cross meant one more game on film, with more tape for the offense and defense to rewatch and improve on. Desko said that adding the Crusaders to SU’s schedule was important so it didn’t miss a week of competition. But Saturday afternoon’s win was merely a tune-up for Duke.

Published on March 20, 2021 at 2:22 pm

aekaylor@syr.edu | @cincinnallie