Binghamton defenseman Mike Cove was fed up.

Two seconds after an Orange shot deflected off his stick and into the net for Syracuse’s sixth unanswered goal in the first half, the feisty 5-foot-6, 175-pound Cove didn’t hesitate. He winced in disgust, yanked his stick vertically behind his head and smashed it vehemently into the Carrier Dome turf.

After a slow start, Saturday’s game between No. 3 Syracuse (5-1) and Binghamton (2-2) turned into a broken record. The Orange used a decisive size advantage to flush layup after layup, eventually crushing its local foe, 16-2. The driving force was patience.

Two games after shooting an erratic 16 percent against Georgetown, Syracuse steamrolled the Bearcats by nurturing offensive possessions – a style Binghamton takes to an extreme. Shots from 15-20 yards out were rare, as SU routinely circled behind the net, waited for a teammate to box out a smaller defender and tic-tac-toed its way to easy goals.

And Cove and his teammates were mentally demoralized. The constant one-timers weren’t by accident. Syracuse patiently played to its size advantage.

‘We definitely wanted to play the body and keep them from getting inside,’ said SU midfielder Matt Abbott, who had one goal and two assists. ‘We knew that they were going to try to slow the ball down, so we had to value our possessions as well.’

Stall ball worked briefly for Binghamton, which effectively minimized the game to a dull plod early on. Heading into Saturday, the Bearcats led the nation in scoring defense (4.0 allowed per game), and it showed. They played keep-away. Content with non-threatening passes around the attack zone, Binghamton kept the game scoreless through the first eight minutes.

Then Syracuse fought patience with more patience. Syracuse’s first goal – a Kenny Nims bullet off an Abbott pass – came after SU passed the ball around the attack zone 16 times. Just like that, the flood gates were opened.

‘We expected Binghamton to come in and really try to keep the ball in their end of the field, not wanting to get into an up-and-down game and they did a good job early,’ SU head coach John Desko said. ‘We did a good job of some controlled pressure. … It turned into fast-break going the other direction.’

Since escaping with a 9-8 win in double overtime against Georgetown on 57 delirious shots March 9, Syracuse’s offense has doubled its percentage in each of the past two games through improved patience. At Johns Hopkins, SU shot 35 percent (14-of-40). On Saturday it went 16-of-45 (36 percent). Less shots, but better shots.

‘Our shooting percentage was awful in that Georgetown game,’ Abbott said. ‘But we’ve been working on it in practice, and the shots are falling for us lately.’

For much of the game, Bearcats’ goalie Larry Kline (5-foot-6, 160 pounds) was joined by Cove (5-6, 175), Chris Winter (5-9, 175) and John Dreska (5-10, 175) around the cage. SU’s attack of Leveille (6-3, 204), Nims (6-0, 184) and Greg Niewieroski (6-1, 201) easily bullied the Bearcats’ triangle defense into scalene chaos.

‘We were physically bigger than (Binghamton), and we wanted to overpower them a little bit,’ Desko said. ‘We kept the pressure on.’

Leveille is usually most effective behind the net, where he uses his left forearm to fend off flaring sticks and create for others. But on Saturday, SU capitalized on his wide receiver-like frame as the finisher of its patient offense. Nine inches taller than Cove, Leveille dominated. He scored four goals – three merely a couple yards from the goal.

‘Guys made great looks to me, and when I’m by the crease I have to finish those,’ said Leveille, who extended his point streak to 44 straight games, the second-longest in the nation.

Overly anxious to erase last season’s 5-8 disappointment, a ‘bombs away’ attitude fueled SU’s offense early in the season, Abbott said. But now that last season’s win total has already been matched – in half as many games – there’s a sense of calm. A game like Saturday helps to harness a frenetic offensive attack.

‘Early in the season we didn’t value the ball like we should of,’ Abbott said. ‘We weren’t used to playing with each other then, but now we’re really starting to come together.’

thdunne@syr.edu

Published on March 24, 2008 at 12:00 pm