A year after finishing his career as an elite defender on Syracuse’s back line, Brian Megill already sees things differently.

Since leaving SU, he’s gained a new outlook on the game, and it’s one he wishes he had while still playing with the Orange. So a day after SU dropped its third Atlantic Coast Conference game in as many tries on Sunday, Megill emailed some of his former teammates.

He’s worked through the same kind of rut the team is currently stuck in, and offered a perspective it badly needs.

“I wanted to tell them that bad runs happen, but have to be stopped by the team as a whole,” Megill said. “For guys like the seniors, there isn’t a lot of time left and I lived that last year.”

No. 9 Syracuse (4-3, 0-3 ACC) hosts No. 7 Notre Dame (4-2, 2-0) in the Carrier Dome at noon on Saturday, and it could be the last chance for the Orange to salvage a season that is slipping away. For SU’s senior class — notably goalie Dominic Lamolinara, attack Derek Maltz, midfielder Billy Ward and long-stick midfielder Matt Harris — the date with the Fighting Irish, and the games proceeding it, present an ultimatum of sorts.

The Orange has six games left on its regular-season schedule. And if it doesn’t end its season-long skid soon, it won’t play into the ACC or NCAA tournament, and a handful of careers will be cut short.

“We’re not happy,” SU head coach John Desko said. “We have to get better, we’re better than halfway through the season, and we have to get better as a group in almost all aspects.”

The hours following SU’s 21-7 loss to Duke last Saturday were solemn.

No more than 30 minutes after the final whistle, players were watching film — of them being outclassed by the Blue Devils — on their laptops in the team van. When they got on the plane, the laughing that follows road wins was absent. So was the light talking that normally follows a road loss.

NCAA rules forced Desko to give the team a day off Monday, and he still hadn’t seen his players when he addressed the media before practice Tuesday afternoon. But they had seen one another.

“We had a team meeting, and it was one of the more brutal team meetings I’ve ever been a part of,” Lamolinara said. “For the first time ever I think our hearts were questioned, where we are and what we want.

“I mean, with the way it looked on Sunday I think it’s warranted to question where some people’s hearts are.”

As has been the story all season, the next game isn’t any easier than the last. Notre Dame doubled up No. 8 Virginia 18-9 on March 16 — Syracuse lost to the Cavaliers by five goals earlier in the season — and edged No. 5 North Carolina 11-10 on March 1.

UND also has the second best faceoff specialist in the country in senior Liam O’Connor, who is winning draws at a 68.5 percent clip. And in its last game against Ohio State, sophomore attack Matt Kavanagh scored a program record-tying seven goals.

Syracuse, on the other hand, is still cycling six players through a faceoff rotation winning draws just 37 percent of the time. O’Connor gets to improve his torrid start against a limping group, and if he gets the Fighting Irish possession more times than not, Kavanagh will have a chance to put a dent in the scoreboard.

There’s no time for Syracuse to breathe after its worst loss of the season.

Just another tough test, six games and the growing possibility that that will be it.

“The thought of having just six more games is mind boggling,” Lamolinara said. “I used to have that many games in a weekend at some tournaments. Looking at that has opened up our eyes to what we have in front of us.

“We haven’t lost anything yet and our goals are still there.”

Published on March 26, 2014 at 11:39 pm

Contact Jesse: jcdoug01@syr.edu | @dougherty_jesse