Danny Varello slapped his stick against his hand as he jogged off the field and found his spot in the corner of SU’s sideline. There, as he did many times in the game, he placed his hands on his hips. At that point, he still could wait for his turn to go back in, make something happen. It’s a luxury that followed him through much of last season. But in the Orange’s 12-9 upset loss to Colgate — their first season-opening loss since it joined the Atlantic Coast Conference in 2014 — something was different.

His wait grew longer, then it stopped, and he found himself a spot deeper in the corner, as Jakob Phaup took the last six faceoffs for SU. Varello had no chance to make another play.

For Varello, who was not made available after the game, a 2018 season of struggles confounded with a continuation of the cycle, contributing to the No. 10 Orange (0-1) entering the loss column after Friday night. The junior lost seven of his 12 faceoff attempts and eventually surrendered his position as the most-frequent contributor on the faceoff to the much more efficient Phaup, who was 8-of-13. In another weak performance from Varello, the Orange perhaps found another option. But as Syracuse reflects on the loss, the positives are kept to a minimum.

“Some of the stats were starting to even out in the second half and it felt a little better when we got within one (goal),” SU head coach John Desko said, “and then we had a couple of penalties and we jumped over at the end and (would) lose possession.”

Last season, Varello was given a majority of the reign on faceoff opportunities. Following the departure of SU great Ben Williams, who in his senior year became Syracuse’s all-time leader in faceoff wins with 669, Varello was named the successor. He showed promise with big, quick hands and built strength and quickness starting his sophomore year at Smithtown West (New York) High School.

He responded in the season-opener last year with a dominant showing, winning 15-of-17 attempts in the Orange’s 21-4 shellacking of the Bearcats. But the rest of the season, he experienced struggles. Varello won 134-of-279 of his times at the X. SU’s lack of a second-option, though, had Varello take 207 more attempts than the next highest faceoff contributor.

The belief going into the season was that the Orange would employ a similar strategy, but against the Raiders the losses began to add up. Varello was mismatched in first four attempts and Phaup won three on the same amount of tries. The Orange still went to Varello. He’d win his fifth, but then lose a few more. Colgate head coach Matt Karweck said faceoff stats are “arbitrary,” but as long as losses aren’t turning into breakaways at the other end, then that’s a win. When asked about the lack of possessions, SU starting goalkeeper Drake Porter said he didn’t feel his defense was frustrated, but multiple times a lost faceoff led to a Colgate scoring opportunity on the other end.

The Raiders jumped out to an early lead, and Syracuse needed possessions to turn it around. But Varello still struggled to string multiple wins together.

“Yeah, frankly, we weren’t quite sure how good Malcolm (Feeney) was gonna be,” Colgate head coach Matt Karweck said of his lead faceoff specialist. “It’s funny because you just don’t know. Everybody’s got their kryptonite in the faceoff game, right?”

Syracuse began experimenting. It entered Phaup in for a few tries in a row. Then went back to Varello. But, eventually, Varello’s efforts proved futile. As the Orange started to go on a mini-run midway through the fourth quarter, Phaup took the faceoff each time.

After a few Varello losses, Phaup won possession for the Orange and Jared Fernandez greeted him with a hug on the sideline. He won two more to spark a two-straight scoring run for the Orange. As he jogged back to the sideline, Brendan Curry squared tracked him, stomped, flexed and yelled. With SU down by two goals, under 10 minutes remaining, impending doom on the horizon with a team that’d only previously lost 19 season-opening games in it 103-year history, the Orange found a sign of life in their second faceoff specialist.

“I thought he was really competing on the ground balls,” Desko said of Phaup, who was not made available after the game. “He does a really good job of just kind of sticking his nose in there and fighting for it.”

As the final buzzer sounded, Phaup’s contributions were not enough. The Orange couldn’t recover from the quick start the Raiders had. Varello jogged onto the field as the Colgate bench hopped and screamed its way to Colgate goalkeeper Connor Mullen.

After a year guiding the Orange in the X through his own struggles, Varello walked off the playing field Friday with a sign of uncertainty.

“My hats off to Colgate. We throw two poles out there, those are good ground ball guys and Colgate’s got some ground ball guys, too,” Desko said. “They did a great job.”

Published on February 8, 2019 at 11:42 pm

Contact Michael: mmcclear@syr.edu | @MikeJMcCleary