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After Saturday’s win over Virginia, Syracuse head coach Gary Gait sat at the media stand with three Syracuse players alongside him. To his right was Billy Dwan, who scored the game-tying goal. To his left were Will Mark and Sam English. Mark saved UVA’s final shot with three seconds left, 45 seconds after English put the Orange in front for good.

Gait stared at the stat sheet before giving his typical opening statement. But unlike two of its previous three games, he had good news to share.

“We’ve been in this situation a few times this year and came up short,” Gait said postgame. “Hopefully we’ve turned the corner, these guys figured out how to get it done today.”

No. 4 Syracuse enters its first ACC Tournament game since 2019 — and an NCAA Tournament berth all but decided — after a whirlwind of games to end the regular season. The outcomes of SU’s last four games have come down to crucial plays in the final 15 minutes.

The first two contests resulted in losses at No. 1 Notre Dame and then-No. 13 Cornell. The latter two ended with SU defeating North Carolina 10-9 before Saturday’s statement win over the Cavaliers, which acted as a culmination of what worked late in the earlier three contests.

“We did everything we needed to this time, when we needed to this time,” Gait said.

Flashback to March 30, when Syracuse made its first trip to South Bend, Indiana, since a 16-goal loss in 2022. The script was there for revenge by the Orange, who now had all the pieces (a loaded attack, consistent faceoff unit and shutdown defense) to challenge the Fighting Irish.

Then, the faceoff unit fell apart with its worst win rate all season (31%), which Gait said postgame was partially due to Mason Kohn feeling “under the weather.” Kohn didn’t win a faceoff until 11 minutes in, allowing ND to lead by six at the end of the third quarter.

Despite facing its largest deficit of the season, Syracuse wasn’t done. It launched a calculated comeback, as Christian Mulé set up Finn Thomson then Joey Spallina to cut the deficit to four.

It wasn’t that SU did anything drastically different offensively. It just started to capitalize on mistakes from the Fighting Irish’s defense.

“We battled back harder to give ourselves an opportunity to get it close and have chances to make plays,” Gait said.

SU responded to the Fighting Irish’s only goal of the fourth quarter with a score from Jake Stevens before Michael Leo found the back of the net to bring the Orange within two. Stevens picked up the ensuing ground ball on the faceoff, but the offense stalled. Owen Hiltz missed Thomson at the crease with less than two minutes left. Forty seconds later, Hiltz shot wide to end the game.

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The late sputtering made no appearance early in Ithaca three days later. Syracuse jumped out to a 7-0 lead, taking a six-goal lead midway through the third quarter. But like the Fighting Irish did against them, the Orange broke down. And the Big Red finished the job.

This time, SU’s attack was a major problem without Pat March on the sidelines after he was ejected in the first quarter. It also failed to acknowledge Cornell’s goalie switch at halftime. After Matthew Tully gave up 14 goals in the first half, Wyatt Knust started the second half. Gait said the Orange got in a “mental trap,” trying to replicate their first-half success of shooting low.

But they barely mustered any offense, firing just two shots and turning the ball over seven times in the fourth quarter.

“We didn’t have possession there, we played a lot of defense,” Gait said. “It just puts us in a really tough position to keep redefending.”

John Odierna’s defense did everything it could to stop Cornell’s attack in transition. But after a Stevens turnover with seven minutes left, the Big Red got back on offense down by two.

Willem Firth sprinted down the left side, causing Nathan LeVine to slide once he got close to the crease. Michael Long was left unguarded before finishing past Mark for his career-high ninth point.

With 45 seconds left in regulation, the Orange failed to clear as Saam Olexo couldn’t properly come up with a loose ball at midfield. Two passes later, Marc Psyllos tied the game at 16-16. Despite sending the game to two overtimes, Syracuse never recovered for its third straight overtime defeat of the year.

Eleven days gave SU plenty of time to regroup before its matchup with North Carolina. But the fourth quarter again wasn’t pretty.

In an eerie recurrence, Syracuse led UNC by six midway through the third quarter. Then, the Tar Heels went on a 5-0 run to end the game.

The Orange failed to make easy passes, missed ground balls and took bad shots, Gait said. They turned the ball over seven times and failed to clear twice. Spallina simply called Syracuse’s errors “boneheaded.”

“Just mistakes we don’t typically make, but under the pressure we made them,” Gait said.

After cutting Syracuse’s lead to one, the Tar Heels reset out of a timeout, getting the ball to Trevor Deubner, who had already scored twice in the fourth. Deubner ran in front of the right side of the goal from X, firing into Mark’s stick for his 13th save.

“We’ve been in three games where we’ve had opportunities to win …and we haven’t made those saves,” Gait said. “It’s a big step for us to finish that one-goal game with a win.”

The performances of all three fourth quarters culminated against UVA. Just like its recent history against Notre Dame, there was no precedent for Syracuse to keep up with the Cavaliers, who averaged 20 goals in their last three wins over SU.

With Syracuse leading by one at the start of the fourth, the Cavaliers won 2-of-8 faceoffs to open the quarter, creating a crutch for the Orange just like they did in South Bend. The attack stalled with two shots by the midway point of the fourth quarter similar to in Ithaca. And after dominating against Virginia’s aggressive ride, SU struggled to clear like in Chapel Hill, allowing the Cavaliers to tie the game at 14-14.

But this wasn’t going to be another gut wrenching loss for Syracuse, who employed everything in its arsenal to succeed down the stretch. After Ryan Colsey gave Virginia a 17-14 lead, John Mullen won at the faceoff X to set up a twister goal from Stevens.

Then, Thomson rolled after setting a pick for English, one of its coveted plays that Cavaliers’ head coach Lars Tiffany said they struggled against all afternoon, to cut UVA’s lead to one. Following Dwan’s game-tying goal, he caused one final turnover to keep it scoreless for the final nine minutes of play.

“To be able to mount a comeback in the fourth quarter, which we haven’t been able to do lately, it’s exciting for us,” Gait said.

Published on April 25, 2024 at 12:32 am

Contact Anish: asvasude@syr.edu | @anish_vasu