In front of the Notre Dame goal, JoJo Marasco spun relentlessly to try and get free. With two Fighting Irish defenders hounding him down the right alley, Marasco sprinted toward the goal line.

There, he spun back once more and found Stephen Keogh. End of sentence.

‘When given the opportunity, Stephen Keogh is automatic at finishing,’ said Zach Babo, a staff writer for Inside Lacrosse, in a phone interview. ‘… Keogh is the end-of-the-sentence kind of guy. He is going to finish what the rest of the offense is going to generate.’

Keogh’s goal against the Irish represented a new wrinkle in No. 1 SU’s offensive scheme that has propelled the team to four straight wins. Ever since attack Tim Desko injured his knee against Princeton, Tom Palasek has played — and played very well — in his spot. It has allowed the Orange (13-1, 5-0 Big East) to adjust its lineup so that it has a dominant dodger on either side of the goal on offense. Palasek has commanded the attack from behind the goal for the most part, while Marasco has thrived in front of it as the fourth attack or a midfielder.

Babo called Palasek and Marasco ‘quarterbacks’ of the Syracuse attack. And the ability to have one of them running the offense from behind the goal and the other out front has invigorated a once-dreary Orange attack.

Syracuse has averaged more than 12 goals per game in its four wins since losing to then-No. 5 Cornell on April 12.

‘You kind of have that dodging, great-vision quarterback above the cage and that dodging, great-vision quarterback behind the cage,’ Babo said.

‘It’s a very difficult thing to defend for defenses because they have two different guys that can feed them the ball.’

Marasco and Palasek have thrived as distributors of late and added a punch to head coach John Desko’s offense. During Syracuse’s four-game winning streak, the pair has handed out 11 assists combined.

Three of those 11 have gone to Keogh, whose production has improved with the additional playmaker in the lineup. He netted four goals Saturday in SU’s 11-8 upset of then-No. 1 Notre Dame — a performance that drew praise from Irish head coach Kevin Corrigan.

‘I think he hurt us when we didn’t slide off of him, and I think he hurt us when we did,’ Corrigan said. ‘That’s a pretty good player right there.’

In addition to superior field vision, Palasek and Marasco bring speed to the Syracuse lineup. Against a Notre Dame defensive unit that boasted an average height of 6-foot-3 among its starters, their quickness posed problems. Something illustrated in Marasco’s ability to shed two Irish defenders and find Keogh streaking toward the crease for the catch-and-shoot goal.

In all, Marasco and Palasek played a hand in five of the Orange’s 11 goals. In a 12-2 win over Rutgers on April 23, they were involved in eight of 12.

‘I feel like when we’re moving and our spacing is right, the speed really helps us out,’ Palasek said. ‘So if we can play fast out there, it’s tough for any guy out on the field to stay with us.’

It’s a duo that Babo feels could hold the key to SU’s postseason chances, especially considering the type of player that Keogh is. The senior from Canada is much more likely to move off the ball and get open for a shot than he is to create one for himself. So if Marasco and Palasek can continue to orchestrate the offense at a high level, the Orange’s success will continue, too.

‘(Keogh’s) production is so much an end result of the way the rest of Syracuse is clicking on a given day,’ Babo said.

And in a game that was thought to be a defensive struggle between two of the stingiest units in the country, Syracuse’s ability to click and make plays was the difference. The Orange attack used its agility and lateral quickness to find the creases in the Notre Dame defense and exploit the Irish for 11 goals — two more than the unit had given up in a single game this season coming into the weekend.

And the front-back combination of Marasco and Palasek, respectively, was one big reason.

‘I thought our middies had some good looks down low,’ Desko said. ‘And then when they started covering us up down low, we were able to move the ball back up top.

‘I thought we were moving off the ball, and anytime you’re moving like that it’s harder to cover people off the ball.’

mjcohe02@syr.edu

 

Published on May 2, 2011 at 12:00 pm

Contact Michael: mjcohe02@syr.edu | @Michael_Cohen13