Jovan Miller fired at the goal again, and for the third time, his shot sailed high without grazing any part of the net. The sophomore midfielder had just fired the Syracuse men’s lacrosse team’s sixth shot of the game, and like his teammates, he had failed to score the first goal during Saturday’s contest against Harvard.

No matter how close the Orange came to a goal, such as Stephen Keogh’s shot that careened off the top bar in the opening minutes, SU could not find a way to get the ball past Harvard goalie Joe Pike.

But with 4:17 remaining in the first quarter, Tim Desko finally broke the stalemate on a routine shot over defenders to give Syracuse it’s first goal – and the offense found its rhythm.

Syracuse scored seven goals in the final 19:17 of the first half to propel it to a 10-7 win over Harvard in its last scrimmage of the year Saturday afternoon at the Carrier Dome. Syracuse went 3-0 in its scrimmages and will open the regular season Sunday against Providence.

‘I think that it was nerves at the beginning, and we were executing well, we just couldn’t find the back of the net,’ Keogh said. ‘We hit a couple of pipes, but we just kept going and executing the offense and it finally went on.’

While Syracuse converted on just 10-of-37 shots for the game, the team’s hot shooting to end the first quarter that sustained through the second gave Syracuse the cushion it needed to fend off the Crimson.

Desko’s goal led way to midfielder Matt Abbott’s unassisted goal 1:33 later, which gave Syracuse a 2-0 lead that became 2-1 by the end of the first quarter. But in the second quarter, the offense turned it on.

Last weekend, Syracuse head coach John Desko was disappointed in Keogh’s performance, in which he failed to notch a goal in one of the scrimmage games and only finished with two goals for the day. Saturday, Keogh matched his total from last weekend in a span of 2:59.

Tim Desko found Keogh in the middle of the field for a shot, while Keogh fell to the FieldTurf to give Syracuse a 3-1 lead with 14:16 left in the quarter. Keogh added one last goal in the fourth quarter to finish the day with three goals and an assist.

‘I thought last game I didn’t produce probably as much as I should have,’ Keogh said. ‘I missed a couple of scoring opportunities early in the game. I didn’t this week, but I kept my head in the game and kept shooting, and finally it went in the back of the net.’

Part of the Orange’s slow start stemmed from the Syracuse attack having to play this game without the services of Kenny Nims, who missed the game with a cold after not practicing all week.

This left the Orange lacking depth at the attack position and having to use a rotation that consisted of four midfielders at times, something the offense is not used to doing in games.

‘We only had four attackmen today, so we didn’t have a lot of depth, and people were getting a little tired,’ Tim Desko said. ‘We did good in the beginning and then we needed to work on a few things, but other than that it was good.’

While the offensive output over the final 18-plus minutes won the team the game, Syracuse’s offensive performance the rest of the game left something more to be desired.

SU tallied five goals in the second, but managed just five goals in the other three quarters combined.

That’s why head coach John Desko still wanted improvement after the game from his offense and team, despite the offensive outburst that sealed the game.

‘I think we need to shoot better going into next week also,’ Syracuse head coach John Desko said. ‘These scrimmages have helped us and we have another week going to Providence to work on that together, 110 yards, so, no, I think we’re behind from where I wanted to be, but we hope to work on everything we need to do to get caught up this week.’

mrehalt@syr.edu

Published on February 8, 2009 at 12:00 pm