VILLANOVA, Pa. — The final 1:17 encapsulated everything that preceded it. Syracuse showed its inability to protect the ball, Villanova took advantage, but the Orange came up with a clutch answer.

First, as JoJo Marasco tried to dodge, spin and duck away from the Wildcats’ Brian Karalunas, he lost the ball after a flurry of check attempts.

‘It’s all guts at that point,’ Karalunas said. ‘Their guy is carrying it as best he can, I’m trying to take it away as best I can. Fortunately, I won that battle…’

The win led to a transition goal the other way, as Karalunas found Kevin Cunningham waiting eagerly 10 yards away from the goal for an easy finish that tied the game with 0:57 left.

But in a last-ditch effort, the Orange escaped. With 0:06 remaining, Marasco flashed open in front of the goal and buried a shot off an assist from midfielder Jovan Miller. Villanova was left stunned.

‘Unfortunately, they scored again,’ Karalunas said, finishing his thought.

With that dramatic goal by Marasco, Syracuse (7-0, 2-0 Big East) overcame its second consecutive poor offensive showing to beat the Wildcats 5-4. The majority of the 6,289 were sent home disappointed after seeing a Villanova (7-2, 0-1 Big East) team come up short in a game where it was the more physical side. An inefficient Orange attack mustered barely enough to move to 3-0 in one-goal games this season.

Wildcats’ head coach Mike Corrado came into the game knowing his defense had to pressure the Orange. With as much talent as Syracuse has, allowing the offense to work the ball only improves its efficiency, he said.

‘They’re very effective if you sit back, so we tried to be aggressive,’ Corrado said. ‘We’ve really adopted a very aggressive philosophy that we’re going to slide early, and we’re going to recover, and we’re going to try to speed things up on teams.’

For the bulk of the game, the Villanova defense implemented that plan to perfection. Any time a Syracuse player tried to set up a dodge toward goal, they were beaten and bullied until the ball popped loose — at which point the fans erupted.

The aggressiveness and physicality only intensified as the game wore on. In the fourth quarter, SU attack Tom Palasek ran full speed toward goal but was stood up by Villanova’s Andrew Henrich. Minutes later, Jeremy Thompson was flattened in front of the Orange bench.

‘They had very good long-sticks that could take the ball away,’ Thompson said. ‘They were tough, they were strong.’

Syracuse committed 19 total turnovers, which drew the ire of SU head coach John Desko after the game.

The inability to get a steady offensive attack going meant the Orange’s goals came via quick-hitting combinations or individual displays of skill. SU first got on the board when Tim Desko found attack Stephen Keogh sprinting across the face of goal for an instantaneous catch-and-shoot. The second goal was much the same. Only this time, Marasco finished off a pass over the back of his head on a feed from Josh Amidon. And on the third, Kevin Drew sprinted more than half the field for an unassisted tally in transition.

But from that point, the Orange went scoreless from a stretch of 40:06, from the first to the fourth quarter.

In a game during which the Wildcats didn’t use any stall tactics against the Orange, John Desko was concerned with the lack of production.

‘I want to be more composed,’ Desko said. ‘Everybody talks about our senior group out there and guys that have won a couple national championships. … You’d think they’d be a little more composed on the field and move the ball around and let everybody touch it.’

But with that not being the case, Syracuse was forced to capitalize on any small opening or space through which one of its attack could dart and dish.

And after 59:45 of offensive frustration, Miller took his chance with 15 seconds left. He juked on Villanova’s Mike Brennan and got his hands free enough for a quick feed to Marasco. The sophomore caught and fired on net to suck the wind out of the Wildcat’s sails and send Syracuse home with a win.

‘It’s two extremes, you know,’ Karalunas said. ‘It’s about as pumped as could be — you start looking at overtime with 57 seconds left. And (then we) came up six seconds short. It goes from your high to as low as you could get. It’s tough.’

mjcohe02@syr.edu

Published on March 26, 2011 at 12:00 pm

Contact Michael: mjcohe02@syr.edu | @Michael_Cohen13