It was Charley Toomey’s one fear. His game plan’s kryptonite.

At some point, a brief Syracuse surge would crack the Loyola (Md.) strategy. And the Greyhound head coach’s team would be helpless.

‘We talked about stopping the Syracuse run,’ Toomey said in his postgame press conference. ‘You have to be ready to call a timeout or dig in defensively and get the next stop. Because it can be over quickly.’

Toomey’s lips tightened, and his eyes rolled upward into a baffled daze.

‘They just kept coming and coming and coming.’

No. 2 Syracuse defeated No. 18 Loyola Saturday, 13-8, with unrelenting stubbornness. In a game of contrasting styles, Loyola had one objective – to make offense defense. Don’t give Syracuse the ball. Drone the tempo to nullify SU’s speed advantage. But SU kept its foot on the pedal.

Through the first quarter, Loyola dominated the time of possession and built a 2-0 lead. Syracuse was held scoreless in a period for the first time in 15 quarters. The Orange shot 0-for-13 with seven sailing wide of the net. Possessions were precious, but SU kept firing away with liberal abandon. Syracuse doubled up Loyola in shots by the end, 56-28, but through the first two and a half quarters the teams exchanged the lead three times. An upset was up for grabs.

Then, suddenly, the dreaded flurry buried Toomey’s team.

Midway through the third quarter, with SU holding a slim 6-5 lead, goalie John Galloway bombed a 70-yard Hail Mary pass to Kenny Nims from cage to cage. Greg Niewieroski surged on the trail, caught Nims’ pass and was crunched into the right post by Loyola defenseman Steve Layne – simultaneously tapping in the one-timer. It was a two-goal play. Layne was flagged for an illegal body check, and 20 seconds later, Syracuse middie Dan Hardy tomahawked the man-up goal in.

The resulting three-goal lead might as well have been 10 goals. Loyola’s cautious ball-hogging was rendered worthless.

‘We didn’t want to get into a running game,’ Toomey said. ‘We played at the tempo we wanted to play at. We needed to have the ball, and we needed to get some quality shots. … We knew that if we gave them an opportunity to run, it could turn ugly quick.’

Loyola’s Toomey may be defensive-minded by nature, having served as the team’s defensive coordinator before being promoted to head coach three years ago. The strategy held up for awhile. Loyola, which lost 80 percent of its scoring in 2007 to graduation, bled the clock from the onset.

On the Greyhounds’ second offensive possession, they held the ball for one minute and 15 seconds, passing the ball 14 times and never getting off a shot. On its next possession, Loyola players flipped the ball to each other 15 times over 49 seconds, until slippery senior attack Shane Koppens found Chris Basler for a goal. Keep-away was working.

‘It wasn’t like they were just walking around with it,’ SU head coach John Desko said. ‘They were patient. The guys ran and did some dodging, and I think they were very effective in what they did as far as controlling the tempo.’

So Syracuse’s offense, third-ranked nationally, ‘kept coming.’

Desko’s team has outshot its opponent by at least 10 shots in six of its eight games this year. That didn’t change against Loyola’s ball-control offense. Whenever Loyola fumbled, the Orange pounced. SU held the groundball advantage, 35-23, which led to many fast-break opportunities in transition. Loyola’s strategy and the wear and tear of three games in seven days did not decelerate Syracuse’s offense.

The Orange can have peace of mind knowing 40-plus shots will be available against gimmick game plans. In its next game, against No. 16 Princeton (4-3), another slow-down team, Syracuse may need to rewind and repeat Saturday all over again.

‘Most of the games this far this year, other teams have been playing up and down,’ Leveille said. ‘That’s a style we’re happy playing, but we need to be prepared to play a slow-down game.’

Desko reiterated Toomey’s nightmare. Only instead of befuddled rolling eyes, Desko exuded calm assurance – as if it’s inevitable.

‘If we just keep coming and keep coming,’ he said, ‘those shots are going drop.’

thdunne@syr.edu

Published on March 30, 2008 at 12:00 pm