For all the hype surrounding the new rule changes going into the season, in the first scrimmage of the year against Hofstra it was tough to tell the immediate effects.

A stall warning wasn’t called until the final minutes of the first scrimmage when Syracuse was primarily playing its reserves. About 20 seconds after the stall warning was called and the 30-second shot clock began the Orange turned the ball over.
“We did a couple different things today,” SU head coach John Desko said. “Thirty seconds is really a long time … we can run an offense.”

The stall warnings were infrequent, and often unnoticed, and largely didn’t affect Syracuse. But some of the other rule changes helped the Orange play at the pace that it enjoys.

Subbing on the fly and quicker restarts helped SU, just as many expected. Syracuse was able to get out and run and score 15 and 16 goals against the Pride and Holy Cross, respectively.

“With these new rules we’re able play Syracuse lacrosse like back in the day where we pick up a ground ball and we push it,” senior captain JoJo Marasco said.

For a viewer, though, it just looked like the same sport. It still remains to be seen how the rules will affect the style that teams like Providence, Maryland or Johns Hopkins play where they slow the ball down and wear down their opponents, but for a team like SU that liked to play at a fast pace even with old rules, the differences were at most slight.

Never was a shot rushed because of a shot clock, but off of penalties the Orange was scooping up the ball and moving in the other direction before its opponents could finish pleading with the officials.

The breakouts were still infrequent, as both games were relatively tame and penalty-free, but when they happened it was a clinic in SU lacrosse – a blur downfield for Syracuse to set up transition opportunities.

The shot clock should help Syracuse, but it won’t create transition in the way that some of the other rules do. It all comes down to helping the Orange dictate tempo, and the tempo won’t be any different than what SU is used to.

“I didn’t see that changing us too much,” Desko said. “I think it helped the pace. There weren’t too many stalling calls, but when there were we generated some shots without rushing it too much. It’s made it a little faster game, but I don’t think it’s changed things drastically.”

Published on January 26, 2013 at 6:41 pm

Contact David: dbwilson@syr.edu | @DBWilson2