FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – The air of delirium around Gillette Stadium was still fresh as Mike Leveille began to take stock of what his team had just accomplished.

The helmets and sticks of the Syracuse attack and his teammates – along with the bitter memories of last season – had long since been hurled away. They had been exchanged for crisp, white hats and T-shirts that read ‘Champions.’

That’s right, champions.

Third-seeded Syracuse reasserted its place among college lacrosse’s behemoths on this Memorial Day Monday, defeating fifth-seeded Johns Hopkins, 13-10, to earn its NCAA-best 10th national championship and first since 2004. It did so in front of a pro-Syracuse crowd of 48,970, the largest attendance ever for a championship game.

‘Best feeling of my life, I’ll tell you that much,’ a giddy Leveille said on the field afterward, eye-black smeared all over his face and still glistening with sweat.

‘It just means so much to so many people that we could go out and get it done.’

It was an all-too-perfect ending for a Syracuse team that has played all season with a chip-on-its-shoulders type of urgency, keen to regain its spot among college lacrosse’s titans after last year’s 5-8 disaster.

The Orange (16-2) did so with a scrappy effort, one in which Leveille and freshman goalie John Galloway both struggled, only to be picked up by the other members of this Syracuse team that has grown so close during its comeback campaign. A group that persevered through struggles both lacrosse-related and personal – the most recent of which was the death of Aaron Guadagnolo, the 21-year-old brother of SU defenders Kyle and Tom.

‘Unbelievable. It’s like, we’ve gone through so much this year,’ freshman Jovan Miller said. ‘Just the psychological part of it, so many things could have gone wrong, but they went right. It’s just been crazy.’

Miller was the first SU player to grab the trophy, holding it over his head and sprinting onto the field as time expired, while SU head coach John Desko received a Gatorade bath.

As the celebration continued on the field for 20 minutes afterward, Director of Athletics Daryl Gross and Chancellor Nancy Cantor observed the party from midfield. Meanwhile, some players took turns snipping off pieces of the net as keepsakes. After a victory lap, the SU seniors huddled together around the trophy in a more private embrace, while others leaped into the crowd of Orange-clad fans who had stuck around to soak in the atmosphere.

It was perhaps even sweeter that the win should come against Johns Hopkins (11-6), the sport’s winningest program. The two teams each came into the game with nine national titles to their credit.

Syracuse improved to 10-5 all time in championship games and 3-2 in title matches played against Johns Hopkins. The Orange also became only the second team to win the national title after missing the postseason the previous year. The last to do it was the 1983 Syracuse team, which was honored during halftime of the contest.

But it certainly wasn’t easy – not against Hopkins and its methodical style meant to stifle offensive-minded teams like Syracuse. Not with lights-out goalie Michael Gvozden making 20 saves, the most in a championship game since 1995.

Not with Syracuse’s best player – Tewaaraton Trophy nominee and offensive catalyst Leveille – limited to one goal and two assists, rendered invisible most of the day by Jays’ junior Michael Evans.

And not with Galloway struggling for a second straight game, making just seven saves and allowing 10 goals. Six of those scores came from Hopkins’ All-American midfielder, Paul Rabil.

So SU would have to win ugly, score scrappy goals and limit mistakes in the defense.

It did. And the main contributors weren’t the usual suspects.

‘(Leveille) has been there for us all year, he’s been stepping up big time,’ SU attack Stephen Keogh said. ‘And they were shutting him out pretty good, and the whole team just stepped up.’

There was Keogh, a slick-finishing substitute who pocketed two goals, including a neat behind-the-back finish to open the SU scoring.

Then there was Danny Brennan, the nation’s leading faceoff man, who normally doesn’t do a whole lot else. But with time running down in the first quarter, Brennan stole a faceoff, penetrated into the wide open middle of the field and unleashed a shot past Gvozden. It was the senior’s first career point.

There was Kenny Nims, the SU attack who’s accustomed to scoring but not necessarily with SU in a man-down situation, which he did in the second quarter to get SU to within one.

It was the first man-down goal the Jays had allowed all season, and it ignited an Orange offense that had been inefficient until then. Syracuse scored the next four goals to seize control.

‘We took some shots a little farther out than maybe we should have early on and (Gvozden) was there,’ SU head coach John Desko said. ‘We were able to take advantage of some unsettled situations, which helped us settle down from there.’

Perhaps the star of the show was Dan Hardy, SU’s hulking midfielder. After tallying three goals against Notre Dame in the quarterfinal, including the game-winner, Hardy provided an encore. His three goals were a team best, while his aggressiveness created looks for the Syracuse offense throughout large stretches of the contest.

‘The past few games I’ve been trying to take advantage of unsettled situations,’ Hardy said. ‘Just getting a step on the guys and get them running backward. When it’s four-on-four, you have more room to go to the cage.’

The midfield provided eight of the Orange’s goals on the day, and helped it take a 6-5 lead into halftime.

That lead stayed slim until the fourth, when Syracuse began dominating possession, milking the clock and adding to its lead with ruthless efficiency.

Nims and midfielder Brendan Loftus both tallied to extend the SU lead to 12-8. Meanwhile, the Orange defense did its part, taking pressure off the shaky Galloway. It forced 23 Hopkins turnovers on the day.

Finally Leveille, silent all game, got a gift.

Off a faceoff, Hopkins midfielder Lorenzo Heholt made an errant pass back toward Gvozden. The ball ended up in the waiting stick of SU attack Greg Niewieroski, who dished to a wide-open Leveille in front for his first goal of the game.

That gave Syracuse a five-goal lead with 8:15 remaining. Leveille raised both his arms in celebration and the Orange bench exploded, starting to sense that a championship, and redemption for last year’s sins, was within reach.

‘I thought that we played better in the second half, but we made mistakes down the stretch, and at critical junctures,’ Hopkins head coach Dave Pietramala said. ‘…You just can’t do that against a Syracuse team. I’d like to say it’s all them, or it’s all us, but it’s a combination.’

As the clock ran out, Miller, trophy in hand, sprinted over to a group of SU fans on the other side of the field before presenting his teammates with the perfect symbol of Syracuse’s revenge.

It provided the ideal career climax for Leveille, named the tournament’s most outstanding player, who months earlier had challenged his team to refute the pundits who ranked the Orange No. 11 in the preseason.

‘Rightfully so after last season, we deserved that low ranking,’ Leveille said. ‘But we used it as motivation to come this way. We said it was the ranking at the end of the year we wanted.’

And now, Leveille and the Orange can call themselves champions.

jsclayto@syr.edu

Published on June 1, 2008 at 12:00 pm