Get the latest Syracuse news delivered right to your inbox.
Subscribe to our sports newsletter here.

Jack Savage won his third faceoff of the game, shoveling the ground ball inside Holy Cross’ half. He muscled off the Crusaders’ faceoff specialist, Connor DePiero, and sprinted onto the loose ball. And he kept sprinting forward.

Syracuse’s attack moved out of the way and no Holy Cross defender stepped up to Savage. He found space along the right side of the attack and rifled a shot into the top left corner. It added a little more for the Orange to cheer for, as the other nine players embraced him and jumped up and bumped his shoulder pads in celebration.

Syracuse was already up 18 goals at that point, but the goal marked the sophomore’s first collegiate goal in his fourth career appearance.

“Having him score right off the bat was super cool, just because the kid works so hard,” starting faceoff specialist Jakob Phaup said. “He pushes me in practice and is always working out, so it was great to see him put one in.”

Savage helped lead Syracuse (1-0) to just 11 faceoff losses in its 28-5 blowout victory over Holy Cross (0-2). The Orange went 26-for-37 at the X and featured three different faceoff specialists including Phaup, Savage and Jack Fine.

Heading into the game, head coach Gary Gait made it clear Phaup was once again going to be Syracuse’s go-to faceoff specialist. Last season, Phaup finished 23rd nationally in faceoff percentage at 56.7%, and Gait was set to temporarily “ride” him on faceoffs and monitor his performance weekly.

Phaup lost just two first-half faceoffs against Holy Cross and finished the game with a team-high nine ground balls. He began the game a perfect 8-for-8 on faceoffs in the first half and won five more in the second half before being replaced by Savage just over three minutes into the second quarter.

Phaup’s faceoff wins helped Syracuse to its quick start that eventually accumulated to 9-0 after the first 15 minutes and 12-1 by the time he took his last faceoff in the second period. The Orange scored off three consecutive possessions to build their early 3-0 lead in the game’s first four minutes. It specifically helped set up Brendan Curry to use his speed to find the back of the net twice during that span in under a minute.

“Phaup’s our No. 1 faceoff guy right now,” Gait said. “Given the way the score went and how the game was going, it was an opportunity to play those other guys in Savage and Fine and give them experience. We may need those guys down the road, but certainly our number one guy is Jakob Phaup.”

Similarly in the second half, Owen Seebold and Tucker Dordevic added their fifth and fourth respective goals toward the end of the second quarter, which began off Savage’s first faceoff win of the game. Seebold scored an uncontested shot, and then Savage quickly recovered after losing the next faceoff, winning the ground ball and playing the ball forward to Griffin Cook. Cook sent a long pass to Dordevic on the left side of Holy Cross’ zone. Dordevic crashed toward the goal and scored a behind-the-back shot to give Syracuse a 16-point lead.

Savage only played in three games last year winning a combined eight faceoffs in 24 battles at the X. On Saturday, he matched that total off the opening faceoff of the fourth quarter. Savage replaced Phaup for the rest of the game after the first five minutes of the period and took the majority of the faceoffs during the rest of the game.

He got out to a slow start, losing five of his first six faceoffs leading into the halftime break. Savage quickly broke that streak right out of the break and won the game’s next five faceoffs. He only lost one battle at the X in the second half before being replaced early in the fourth quarter by Fine, as Syracuse had increased its lead to 25-4.

“Obviously getting Savage in there is great,” Seebold said. “He’s a great athlete. He’s a really big guy; he can run through guys like we saw. It’s always great and it gets the team energized seeing the faceoff guy get to bury one.”

Syracuse proved just how deep it is offensively as it scored 28 goals for the first time since April 6, 1994. Thirteen different players scored a goal while four more different players notched at least a point. Still, faceoff depth is something Gait believes can make a difference down the road, especially with the top two teams in the country being Syracuse’s next opponents. But it’s a level of depth that Phaup has noticed all along in practice and was happy that it came to fruition against the Crusaders.

“If you come to practice, you wouldn’t know who’s starting. They come in and they work their butts off, and they give me tons of good looks,” Phaup said. “Without Jack Savage and Jack Fine, I wouldn’t be where I’m at.”

Published on February 12, 2022 at 4:36 pm

Contact Alex: ahcirino@syr.edu