Mike Leveille could have just wasted time when he took a pass deep in Massachusetts territory. No hurry to extend a commanding six-goal lead Syracuse had already built up by the midway point of the second quarter, en route to a 16-3 drubbing of UMass.

But that just wouldn’t be Syracuse’s style. Instead, he fired a long pass across the cage to an airborne Kenny Nims for a lacrosse alley-oop – a mid-air pass-and-shoot around UMass goalie Doc Schneider.

Scoring goals had become too easy in the fast-paced first half. The Orange had done it seven times in 18 minutes. So Syracuse had turned to the circus-type play to pile it on the Minutemen.

When it was all over, No. 2 Syracuse had trounced UMass in the Carrier Dome in front of 4,582 at the final regular-season home game to improve to 12-1 in one of its most dominating performances of the year – two weeks before the NCAA tournament.

‘It was just a really good day for the Orangemen I think,’ SU head coach John Desko said. ‘Things were clicking offensively, we saw the zone early on, we made some changes to our zone offense, and that was working. We played good defense, we were making saves. We were clearing the ball.’

The list of things Syracuse did well Saturday is seemingly endless. The three goals allowed by the defense is the second-lowest total of the year, second only to a two-goal performance against Binghamton on March 22. Turnovers were down, and clears were up in one of the team’s most complete games of the year.

It was a blowout, even by the standards of Syracuse, a team that has won six games by seven or more goals this season. The team jumped out to a 9-0 first-half lead, as it powered past a UMass (5-8) team that was futilely trying to force SU off of its fast pace.

In the first quarter alone, Syracuse put up five goals while the Minutemen were able to manage only one shot.

‘The first quarter determined the outcome,’ UMass coach Greg Cannella said. ‘You can’t just keep slowing it down. Not that we tried to speed it up, but we tried to handle the ball a little bit better.’

The SU attack scored in every way imaginable – fast break, drives, long shots and short shots. The Orange made mince meat of a UMass defensive unit that came in allowing only 8.07 goals per game.

‘We have so many weapons, on any given day any guy can step up,’ Leveille said. ‘Between the first two midfield lines and the attack unit, and I think that makes us very dangerous and very hard to defend.’

Coming off last Friday’s 10-5 win over Albany, in which Syracuse admittedly played its sloppiest game in weeks, the Orange played a crisp 60 minutes, committing only 10 turnovers, compared to 21 against Albany.

Conversely, SU used a tight defense and some resourcefulness to both force and take advantage of 22 UMass turnovers.

Never was that more apparent than in the opening goal of the game. After UMass had forced a turnover, it looked for an outlet pass back to goalie Doc Schneider. But an easy lob by defenseman David Von Voigt was picked off by Leveille, who had darted out from behind the goal.

From there, a quick turnaround shot gave Syracuse the 1-0 lead 21 seconds into the game.

‘It was a fortunate play,’ Leveille said. ‘Guys were riding hard and pressuring their defender, and he’s looking to get rid of the ball quickly. I can kind of see he was going to throw it to the goalie and just tried to time it and step in front and pick it off.’

After the dominating first half, Syracuse rolled through the second with predominantly backups. A frustrated UMass team pumped up the physicality, leading to 12 total penalties when most of SU’s starters had exited the game.

Desko said he was happy to escape the end of the game with his team intact. After all, the team has one more regular-season matchup before the postseason. Even at this point, Syracuse shies away from any prognostication regarding its chances of returning to the final four.

But its opponents don’t.

‘I would think that they’re a national champion,’ Cannella said. ‘Certainly final four, hopefully they’ll get to the national championship game.’

kbaustin@syr.edu

Published on April 27, 2008 at 12:00 pm