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Jakob Phaup scooped the faceoff away from his opposite number and kept his eyes trained on the ball, plucking it up into the pocket of his stick. He absorbed whacks from Virginia’s faceoff man, not rushing like he had in the past few Atlantic Coast Conference games. Instead, he settled the ball himself before connecting the outlet pass in the offensive zone. 

Phaup repeated that sequence time and again on Saturday afternoon. He won every faceoff in the first and third quarters, most of which were against the ACC’s top faceoff man, Petey LaSalla. It nearly happened again throughout the fourth quarter as Virginia tried Gable Braun before reverting back to LaSalla.

“He made better decisions today, and he got the ball himself,” SU head coach John Desko said of Phaup postgame. “Whether it was the week of practice and focus or a matchup thing, I don’t really know, but I’m glad he came to play today.”

For a Cavaliers team that had been rolling since a 20-10 loss to Syracuse, nothing seemed to work on Saturday — just like two months prior, during the teams’ first meeting. For Syracuse, that Feb. 27 win was supposed to put the Orange back on track after their season-opening loss to Army. But SU didn’t find that same spark again for weeks, as it slipped and slipped in the rankings and finally settled outside the top 10 — at No. 11 — this past week. The slip included miscommunications on defense, a lack of possession hampering an offense and, as of late, missing intensity and urgency, even as the fate of the Orange’s season clouded with doubt.

Saturday afternoon felt almost like a different season. Phaup gifted Syracuse a much larger margin for error, finishing 24-of-27 at the faceoff X. He won 15 in a row, too.

“I just felt like I had a little pep in my step, finally felt like I was back to my old self and had confidence,” Phaup said postgame. “Little help from my wings and a lot of trust from my teammates and coaches was nice.” 

Riddled with injuries and without leading goal-scorer Chase Scanlan due to suspension, No. 11 Syracuse (6-4, 2-3 ACC) turned Phaup’s success into a 13-11 upset win at No. 5 Virginia (10-4, 2-4). The Orange missed four clears and turned the ball over 18 times, nearly letting a five-goal lead slip away in the final minutes. But they ultimately did enough to manage the lead and notch their second conference win. Offensively, a resurgent five-point outing from Owen Hiltz and four points from Scanlan’s replacement, Owen Seebold, led the way for SU to do to Virginia what other ACC teams have done to SU. 

The Cavaliers threw three different options at Phaup throughout Saturday’s game. None were successful. Phaup said earlier in the year that he’s been slow to the whistle, and he even went home at one point to break out of his slump. He said he listened to his teammates, coaches and alumni, who all put trust in him. On Saturday, Phaup repaid that trust and won all six faceoffs in the first quarter.

That gave Syracuse’s offense, which started slow, time to warm up and begin finding the corners it has grown used to painting this season. Even without the usual shooting efficiency, SU worked multi-shot possessions, which were rare against North Carolina and Notre Dame. And when it scored, it got the ball back. 

Tucker Dordevic found Hiltz for a goal near the end of the first quarter to retake a 3-2 lead. Lucas Quinn scored his 1oth goal of the season a minute and a half before Jamie Trimboli, who hasn’t seen as much of the ball as he did a year ago, did the same. Trimboli ended the night with his first hat trick of the season. 

Another Phaup win led to a side-arm shot from Seebold that ricocheted off Virginia goalie Alex Rode’s knee and into the net. Seebold then assisted a tic-tac-toe goal in transition, taking a pass from Brett Barlow and finding Hiltz to cap a 5-0 run that put SU in the driver’s seat.

“When we can control the ball like that … we’re not so rushed,” Seebold said postgame. “Phaup killed it today, and it just really allows us to settle into our game.”

Lucas Quinn scored twice and added an assist in Syracuse’s win over Virginia. Courtesy of Rich Barnes | USA Today Sports

Virginia stayed close with a 3-0 run in the third quarter. But with control of the ball through Phaup, Syracuse’s offense answered with four goals of its own. Long possessions chewed up the clock and unsettled Virginia’s offense. 

The ride was more disciplined, focusing less on forcing turnovers and more on preventing the cheap transition chances that troubled Syracuse earlier in the year. Occasionally, it was good enough to get the ball back — like when Brett Kennedy and Grant Murphy forced an errant pass from Peter Garno by chasing him to the sideline at midfield. 

“We’ve had to play so much defense because the other team’s winning faceoffs,” Desko said of past ACC games. “Today, the shoe was on the other foot.”

As Mitch Wykoff slung the ball ahead to Hiltz on the right wing of the offensive zone, he began a game of keep away with 30 seconds left and SU up two. The referees awarded an inadvertent timeout, which Desko raised his palms at because he hadn’t called it.

But just 17 ticks of the clock remained, and Syracuse did what it hasn’t been able to do in any ACC game for nearly two months. Seebold turned and wriggled out of a double team, and the wait for the final horn was on. With their season floundering, with a significant part of their defensive corps missing and without their leading goalscorer, the Orange pulled off an unexpected win.

“There’s some relief because we’ve been waiting on a big win like this,” Seebold said. “It’s been a little bit since we’ve had a big win.”

Published on April 24, 2021 at 2:29 pm

Contact Arabdho: armajumd@syr.edu | @aromajumder