Hobart’s student section erupted when the Statesmen scored with eight minutes left in the third quarter. Syracuse’s contingent stood slowly and sarcastically golf-clapped back.

It was the visitors’ first goal of the game. At that point, the Orange had 15.

“Perfect storm, really,” Hobart head coach Greg Raymond said, “… and a combination of us playing very poorly and (Syracuse) being a very good team.”

Seven different Syracuse players scored before halftime, at which point the Orange had a 12-0 lead. By the end, SU ended up using three goalies, six faceoff men and got goals from 10 different players. It was all-around domination, as No. 4 Syracuse (9-2, 2-2 Atlantic Coast) blew by Hobart (7-4, 4-0 Northeastern), 18-5, to capture the Kraus-Simmons Trophy on Senior Night in the Carrier Dome in front of 2,477 fans on Tuesday night.

“We got through a little bit of senioritis in the first part of the first quarter,” SU head coach John Desko said, “… and I think our guys came alive and did what we wanted to do tonight in all facets of the game.”

In somewhat of a tease to start, Ben Williams lost the opening faceoff. But any doubt of what was to follow was put to rest shortly thereafter. Dylan Donahue scored the 100th goal of his career to start the onslaught, and Hakeem Lecky and Nick Weston followed suit.

Sixteen seconds after a Hobart fan urged her section to stand up, Kevin Rice made the score 6-0, and the fan slouched back down into her seat.

It was early in the second quarter, and the energy was already drained from the Statesmen on and off the field before the game could even gain any traction.

“Yeah definitely, there was a bit of nerves at the beginning of the game,” Hobart freshman Christopher Willman said.

SU defender Brandon Mullins picked up a ground ball and ran into the attacking half after extending his stick to evade four defenders. Hobart’s Cooper Stefaniak fired a shot that was deflected almost 20 yards above the net. Willman tried a cross-field pass to Grant Soucy under no pressure, but the ball sailed out of bounds.

“We got back to playing the way we want to play: fast, slide hard, recover quickly,” SU defender Jay McDermott said. “Team defense is our main concept and I thought we got back to that and played a good game today.”

Hobart students, now drained, started chanting “safety school” at Syracuse players. Willman was called for an unnecessary roughness penalty after checking J.T. Forkin after a play was blown dead. Raymond, irate, screamed toward the field after his team was called for a violation after a faceoff.

Syracuse’s rotation of fourth-line midfielders and second-line attacks was now in full swing, and even junior Brenny Daly scored the second goal of his career, while Ryan Simmons — who scored twice for the trophy named after his great-grandfather — got on the board.

“We thought we had the game,” Desko said. “I mean, the attack came out with I think 12-something on the clock in the third quarter.”

As if it wasn’t already doing so, Syracuse coasted to the fourth-quarter buzzer.

It finished the game with 26 more shots than Hobart. Nate Farrell became the first true freshman to play in a regular-season game. And even a walk-on took a faceoff for SU.

Hobart went on a mini-run in the waning minutes, but by that time it was far, far too late.

“We needed a spark from somebody,” Raymond said. “Basically our entire personnel could’ve played a little bit better.”

Published on April 14, 2015 at 9:20 pm

Contact Matt: mcschnei@syr.edu | @matt_schneidman