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Brandon Aviles thought he had his man. The short-stick defensive midfielder backed Army’s Danny Kielbasa into a corner and mirrored his every move for nearly a minute. With just a little more pressure, Aviles could’ve jarred the ball loose and caused a turnover, giving Syracuse the ball back with the game tied 7-7.

Instead, Kielbasa broke to his right. Aviles followed, lunging forward with his stick extended, but with all his momentum heading in one direction, Kielbasa turned and cut the other way. Aviles was beaten, and the Army midfielder found an unguarded Aidan Byrnes. Three Syracuse defenders watched as Byrnes charged toward the crease and scored, giving Army a lead it wouldn’t relinquish on Feb. 20.

Army used the same formula all afternoon against Syracuse’s defense: capitalize on a defensive mistake, pass to an unguarded attack and score. Head coach John Desko blamed it on a lack of practice — Syracuse had three weeks of spring practices and no scrimmages with other teams prior to the season opener.

But postgame, Desko said he wasn’t worried. He wasn’t worried about the lack of preparedness, or the lack of long-stick roster depth, or the defense.

And against then-No. 2 UVA, the Orange showed why. 

After giving up the most goals in a season-opener since Desko joined the team, Syracuse (1-1, 1-0 Atlantic Coast) throttled then-No. 2 Virginia 20-10 on Saturday, and the game was over in the third quarter. Syracuse made impressive improvements on the ride and on offense, but the game-to-game defensive adjustments were one of the key parts that led the Orange to their biggest win over Virginia in program history.

The introduction of Gettysburg transfer Mitch Wykoff — who missed SU’s first game with an injury —  and Brett Kennedy’s shift from the team’s top close defender to long-stick midfielder fueled Syracuse’s improvement. 

“I haven’t seen that kind of change on a team in one week,” Desko said. “The things we were doing, how we were playing defense against Army, then how we played against UVA, especially when you have to know so many of their players at the offensive end of the field because they mix and match their positions so often.”

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Syracuse’s defense held against a UVA offense that featured All-American attack Matt Moore, as well as Ian Laviano, Connor Shellenberger and Charlie Bertrand. Moore, UVA’s top goalscorer last year, was scoreless in the Carrier Dome on Saturday.

Kennedy started the game against Virginia as a close defender, but Desko said his natural position is LSM. One of the biggest changes between the two positions is that the close defender is always on the field no matter who has the ball, Desko said.

In the first quarter, Kennedy was burned by Bertrand. The attack caught Kennedy off guard, running around him to give Virginia a 6-3 lead. Desko then moved him to long-pole, putting Wykoff in the game to guard Moore. Wykoff was making his D-I debut at Syracuse defending one of the best attacks in the conference. And it worked.

Wykoff caused two turnovers and picked up two ground balls. Kennedy picked up three ground balls, and he even scored late in the third quarter. Kennedy ran from Syracuse’s side of the field, with two Cavalier midfielders trailing him, and shot from almost the 25-yard line to make it 16-10 Syracuse.

Goalie Drake Porter makes a save against then-No.2 Virginia. Porter had seven saves on 10 shots in the Orange’s 20-10 win. Courtesy of Rich Barnes

“We really like Kennedy up top if we can get him there, and Mitch’s been playing pretty well in practice,” Desko said. “It’s a lot to ask … making that kind of adjustment to Division I lacrosse and covering one of the best attackmen in the country, but he did a really good job.”

In the rare cases in which Virginia’s five-man attack was able to get through SU’s defense, Drake Porter saved 60% of Virginia’s total shots on goal after a rough first half. 

Porter let in seven goals on 17 shots in the first half, with most of those goals coming on small mental mistakes — freezing up when an attacker came near the crease or not anticipating a second shot after making a save where UVA collected a rebound. But in the second half, Porter made seven saves on 10 shots. He was helped in part by the defense blocking and preventing quality shots, but he still made several impressive saves.

“(Porter’s) obviously one of the best goalies in the country, and when he’s feeling it, when he’s bringing all that energy, I think the whole team feeds off of it,” Stephen Rehfuss said postgame.

Published on March 3, 2021 at 10:53 pm

aekaylor@syr.edu | @cincinnallie