Men’s LAX falls to Virginia after overtime goal

In a back-and-forth game where Syracuse led most of the time, it was Virginia that stormed back late to win in overtime 15-14.

“Obviously, not happy with the loss here in the Carrier Dome,” said Syracuse head coach John Desko. “I thought both teams played extremely hard, and they had a little bit more offense than we did going down the stretch.”

The main storyline of the game came in the penalty box. Virginia spent only two minutes on three penalties, while the Orange spent seven minutes on 11 penalties. While the Cavaliers didn’t win the game on man-up, they scored two of their goals on man-up situations. Syracuse only had three man-up situations, which they capitalized on only once.

Despite logging two and a half minutes of penalty time in the first quarter, the Orange (2-2) still led 3-2. Sophomore midfielder Jacob Buttermore’s first of three goals opened the scoring. He netted his second to make it 2-1 following a Cavalier goal. Virginia (3-2) attackman Michael Kraus opened scoring for Virginia and had a hat trick of his own in the game.

Both teams scored four goals in the second quarter. The Cavaliers grabbed their only lead of the game from another Kraus goal with 10:29 left to get up 4-3. The Orange then went on a 2-0 run to grab the lead right back. Junior midfielder Jamie Trimboli had two of Syracuse’s four goals in the second quarter.

The teams essentially traded goals, exchanging between a one and two score margin. With 2:51 left in the third quarter, the Orange led 11-8 off Peter Dearth’s first goal of the year. Virginia closed the gap to two goals to end the third quarter.

After a goal from Stephen Rehfuss, the Orange led 13-9 with 10 minutes to go. That’s when the Cavaliers stormed back with their own three-goal run. Senior attackman Bradley Voigt had a huge man-down goal for Syracuse to push the lead to 14-12. Virginia then scored two goals in the last three minutes to even it at 14.

The Cavaliers were gifted a man-up opportunity with 2:50 left in overtime. After two shots that went wide for Virginia, junior attackman Mikey Herring scored with a minute and a half left to give the Cavaliers a road win, 15-14.

Syracuse meets John Hopkins on March 9 at 1 p.m. in the Carrier Dome.