When Peter Dearth raced over midfield in transition, his short stick rose and left shoulder lowered. A clear attempt that had started with a Drake Porter initiation and ended with a Brett Kennedy execution worked its way to Dearth with no Binghamton defender within a stick’s range at the 40-yard line.

It was a similar development to Syracuse’s first goal against Colgate last week: the senior beating midfielders in between the restraining lines, turning one gained step into two. But this time, there was a defender in Dearth’s way.

Binghamton’s Salvatore Ienna took two steps forward and then one fall onto the Carrier Dome turf. Dearth’s shoulder met his chest. As Dearth jogged toward the sideline after his ensuing shot went in, he lifted his arm and flexed. From Syracuse’s bench, long-stick midfielder Jared Fernandez did the same.

“He’s a big guy so it’s gonna take an even bigger guy to get in his way and knock him down,” Griffin Cook said. 

It was the final tally in a second quarter where Syracuse held Binghamton scoreless — halting a 2-0 run that closed the opening frame. Pat March’s offense still produced shots at a rate that nearly tripled the Bearcats’, but Teddy Dolan’s 15 saves kept the Orange from turning a comfortable lead into a blowout — at least in the first half. 

In the last 30 minutes, Syracuse (2-0) outscored the Bearcats (0-2) by seven and secured a 17-4 victory in the final tune-up before next weekend’s tilt against No. 14 Army — its first ranked opponent this year. After a season opener defined by one attack’s seven goals and another’s seven assists, 11 different players coordinated a balanced scoring for SU.

“We have a lot of depth,” Cook said “so it’s pretty much just everybody can take their shots, everybody can make their looks.”

Last Friday’s opener against Colgate provided a season-long blueprint, even if it became slightly skewed at the end. Transfer Chase Scanlan’s seven goals centralized the 21-goal and 65-shot outburst. The only thing missing, head coach John Desko said Wednesday, was accurate shooting early — it took SU nine minutes to score two goals against the Raiders.

And early on, that’s what the Orange did. Three goals on four shots centered around Scanlan again, as he cut after a dodge from Tucker Dordevic and finished for the first goal. Two minutes later, Scanlan shook off Cook at X and switched to his left hand when he arrived in front of the cage, beating Dolan from just outside the crease. 

From the sideline, Desko thought it was the start of another performance like last week, he said. But Binghamton matched tighter on Scanlan after the opening pair, and he found another role as Syracuse’s facilitator. A balance that 21 goals inevitably hinted at eight days earlier emerged against the Bearcats when the next six Syracuse goals came from six different players — culminating in Dearth’s right before halftime.

“We don’t put people in certain spots of the field we kind of move them around,” Desko said. “And Binghamton played a lot of zone defense so that’s when we get guys in different spots.”

Will Fudge | Staff Photographer

 

Dolan, though, kept it from becoming a blowout and even gave the Bearcats life at the end of the first. After a Binghamton timeout, he deflected a Cook shot that rose into the end zone bleachers. Shots sailed high and wide as the Orange tried to figure out Dolan’s techniques, and Binghamton closed the lanes that Syracuse exposed early — forcing the Orange to win from the top.

At one point in the second quarter, Scanlan nodded his head behind the cage and motioned for Rehfuss to cut behind the alley’s defender. The Orange’s assists leader shuffled two steps, but dropped Scanlan’s pass. Lucas Quinn’s shot bounced off the post and nearly off the Carrier Dome’s roof, and then Syracuse turned it over near midfield.

Binghamton’s slow offense that tended to fire shots in the final 10 seconds of the shot clock drew a “Shoot the damn ball,” call from the crowd. But it became a game of pace, and Syracuse couldn’t convert the same way, even as it adjusted without Nick Mellen — a top close defender missing the game with a leg injury. 

“We didn’t shoot well, we kind of jammed it inside and we should’ve been more patient with it,” Desko said. 

To open the third, though, Scanlan dodged from X and drew a slide from Cook’s defender, leaving the sophomore open for a goal at the left post. A five-goal lead became six. Then, seven. And when Brendan Curry ripped his third of the night past Dolan, 11. 

“It took us about a quarter to figure out their goalie,” Cook said. “And once we settled down and had their goalie figured out, we just started pouring it on.”

Cook notched a hat trick of his own at the right post midway through the fourth, just as Drake Porter began a light jog toward the sideline and Luke Strang replaced him in goal. The last time Syracuse played the Bearcats, it was Porter — then the backup — who opened the fourth quarter in goal. Syracuse hadn’t put the game away at that point Saturday, though.

After Cook scored, Strang playfully jogged back toward the bench for the media timeout. He hadn’t even reached the crease yet. But Binghamton’s Dolan started fishing for the ball again. He had prevented the game from reaching blowout status to that point, and avoided the sequence of substitutions that gave third-liners like Andrew Kim rare scoring chances.

Yet as third-string faceoff specialist Nate Garlow jogged out to the center from the SU huddle, that’s exactly what happened.

Published on February 15, 2020 at 4:23 pm

Contact Andrew: arcrane@syr.edu | @CraneAndrew