There’s still one Orange to root for — The Daily Orange! Donate today and help us win College Media Madness.

SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Coming off the Orange’s best performance of the year in an upset win over Duke, Syracuse played its worst half of lacrosse against No. 15 Notre Dame on Saturday.

SU trailed 9-0 at the end of the first quarter, the most goals SU has given up in a single quarter since a game against Maryland in 2014. SU had the chance to erase a 1-3 start in 2022, get back above .500, and get its season trending back in the right direction.

Instead, it folded right off the bat. The game was long out of reach by halftime, when Syracuse trailed 15-3, and it only worsened when Notre Dame didn’t let up in the second half. The defeat had shades of SU’s 22-8 loss in 2021 at Arlotta Stadium, one where the Orange were barely competitive with their Atlantic Coast Conference foes.

Here are some observations from No. 18 Syracuse’s (4-5, 1-2 ACC) 22-6 blowout loss to No. 15 Notre Dame (4-4, 2-1 ACC):

Offense has its worst outing of the year

With SU trailing 10-0 at the start of the second quarter, SU defender Nick Caccamo charged forward with the ball in his stick. Up to that point, Syracuse couldn’t get anything going on offense.

Minutes earlier, the Orange had been outshot 17-3, a statline which quickly worsened as Pat Kavanagh found his brother, Chris Kavanagh, to make it 11-0. So when Caccamo saw an opportunity, the defender — of all people — saw it fit to try his luck. The shot sailed just over the top of the cage, but at the time, it felt like Syracuse’s best opportunity of the day.

That’s how much Syracuse was struggling. On its first possession of the afternoon, it took the Orange until 15 seconds remained on the shot clock to get their first shot off. That shot from Brendan Curry wasn’t from a very promising angle and sailed wide.

That set the tone for Syracuse. Owen Seebold had the ball whacked out of his stick at X in the first quarter, and Quinn McCahon scored on the other end for Notre Dame to make it 4-0.

Seebold fired a backward pass toward Tucker Dordevic in the second quarter, but he took his eyes off the ball and missed it, marking SU’s seventh turnover. Dordevic had a similar uncharacteristic mistake in the third quarter when he again missed a routine catch for SU’s 14th turnover.

The Orange finished with 18 turnovers, the second most of the year. SU notched 14 second-quarter shots, and 12 third-quarter ones, but scored on just four of those attempts.

Jake Taylor makes Syracuse pay

Junior Jake Taylor entered Saturday’s contest with three career goals, two of which came this season.

Saturday, Taylor — the unlikeliest of heroes — set a single-game program record with eight goals. That came on just 10 shots. Taylor’s record-setting performance came on the same day that Pat nearly broke the program record for most points in a game.

Last year, Pat set that record himself when he notched 10 points in his second game against the Orange at Arlotta Stadium. Saturday afternoon, he finished with three goals and six assists.

On Taylor’s first goal, he found a soft spot in Syracuse’s zone and cashed in a relatively straightforward close-range shot after Eric Dobson found him. He scored a smooth, behind-the-back highlight worthy goal to make it 5-0.

Then he scored on a man-up chance and came from X to score an over-the-shoulder goal. Taylor scored another miraculous, behind-the-back goal on a pass from Pat.

This time, Phaup’s performance isn’t enough

Last week against Duke, Jakob Phaup won 10 of his final 14 faceoffs against the Blue Devils’ Jake Naso. The performance marked a drastic improvement from Phaup’s 1-of-10 outing in 2021, one that saw him get benched for backup Danny Varello early in the second quarter.

Saturday in South Bend, Phaup couldn’t quite replicate that. Notre Dame’s new faceoff starter, freshman Will Lynch, won six of the first 10 faceoffs, enough to help his team into an early 9-0 lead.

Phaup finished 20-of-31 at the faceoff X. Last year, Phaup went 1-of-8 and got benched in the first game, and then was 9-of-27 in the second game where SU lost by 14 goals. He didn’t have an answer for the two-headed faceoff team that featured Charlie Leonard and Kyle Gallagher.

This year, though, against Lynch, Phaup showed improvement but couldn’t quite do enough. The SU specialist had three faceoff violations within the first 11 minutes of the game. On multiple occasions, it seemed like Phaup did enough to win the faceoff, but SU didn’t come away with the ball when a Syracuse wing lost the ball or couldn’t recover a loose ball.

Syracuse’s defense doesn’t slide when it should

With less than three seconds before the halftime buzzer, Syracuse’s defense knew exactly what it needed to do: Keep the ball out of its net.

It watched as Notre Dame goalie Liam Entenmann unleashed a full-field bomb of a pass, watched as the ball sailed through the air and watched as Pat lept to catch it right outside the SU crease.

Syracuse had three defenders bracketing Pat, but none contested the ball in the air. And before they could close him down, the star attack scored to make it 15-3 right before halftime.

The play was telling of the day that Syracuse’s defense had. On numerous occasions, the unit missed slides or left wide-open gaps in its zone. It gave up easy goals to both Chris and Pat, as well as Wheaton Jackoboice and Taylor, conceding a season-high 22 goals.

Published on April 2, 2022 at 4:16 pm

Contact Roshan: rferna04@syr.edu | @Roshan_f16