Pace and possession gives enough edge for Syracuse to beat resilient Towson team
Pace, possession gives edge for SU to beat resilient Towson
Orange score seven unanswered goals in the fourth quarter to pick up their first ranked win of the season.
Pace and possession was the name of the game for Syracuse Monday as they beat a resilient Towson team. In the first test of the season Syracuse outlasted Towson 18-7.
Through the first quarter-and-a-half Syracuse freshman John Mullen did not lose a faceoff straight-up. Outside a few false start fouls that allowed for another Orange player to come in at the face-off x, Mullen took the majority of the face-offs.
Because of the lack of possessions in the first half for Towson, Syracuse made it difficult to keep up and every mistake was magnified. In the end, Towson could not come up with enough stops.
After the Orange took the 4-1 lead, the Tiger kept the game slipping away by responding anytime SU tried to go on a run.
The Orange put up six goals in the first quarter, started off by Michael Leo less than two minutes in the game. Leo’s goal was followed by Finn Thomson assisted by Owen Hiltz who accounted for seven points on the night; a hat-trick and four assists.
Thomson also had a hat trick on the night.
After the Thomson goal, the Orange regained possession of the ball but made a costly mistake. On a Joey Spallina dodge to the goal, a teammate set a moving screen. Towson took over, clearing down the field. On a sharp pass from the X position, Ronan Fitzpatrick hit a cutter, Bode Maurer, who scored Towson’s first goal of the night, 2-1.
Much of the same happened for the Orange through the rest of the quarter as they ended the first quarter up 6-3.
The second quarter was much slower for the Orange, only scoring three goals. The team did enough to keep a comfortable four goal lead going into halftime, 9-5. For all that had gone wrong for Towson to that point, the team felt good going into the half.
“Being down four at halftime, you know, and not playing well, but we had an opportunity, and in that third quarter, I thought we showed a little bit more life,” Towson head coach Shawn Nadelen said.
And show life they did. Towson came out strong, caused turnovers, and possessed the ball, something Syracuse had not seen from them in the first two quarters. The Orange put up a sloppy two more goals, but Towson matched both of them.
“Coach mentioned it in the locker room, after the game. We didn’t control the pace of the play. They had possessions for six minutes at a time, I don’t know, a long time, and then we just came down and took the first opportunity,” Hiltz said.
Nonetheless in the fourth quarter the Orange really figured it out.
“It’ll be sometimes when we go on a little cold streak, but once we find kind of our rhythm and uh start controlling the pace and finishing the ball, we kind of capitalize and it just makes it easy,” Hiltz said.
Syracuse’s seven goals in the fourth quarter was the most the it put up in a quarter since the 10-goal second quarter in the first game of the season against Vermont. Never letting Towson truly possess the ball or have any breathing room stymied all hopes of a comeback.
Over the course of the first three games, the Orange have done what they were supposed to do. Especially being the No. 2 team in the nation, anything short of winning Friday’s game against Vermont and last week’s appearance against Jacksonville would be a disappointment. Today was the first true test and even though there were stumbles, in the end it was another blow-out home victory.
The Orange have their second test this coming Saturday against Maryland. Coming into Saturday’s game Maryland is ranked No. 4 in the nation. It doesn’t get any easier after that, the next two games; No. 20 Harvard and a road trip to Salt Lake City against Utah.