Nick Mellen juked out his defender, drew “oohs” and “ahhs” from the crowd and ran up the field. The Syracuse freshman defender was looking to clear the ball and pass it back out to his offense, which had just scored two goals in first 2:08 of the second quarter after managing two the entire first quarter.

But as he got closer toward midfield he found himself surrounded by blue jerseys and gold helmets and he turned the ball over. The ground ball was scooped up by Notre Dame’s Matt Kavanagh, who sprinted the other way and got off a shot right before being bumped by SU defenders. As he tumbled to the ground, he could see the ball blow right by goalie Warren Hill, opening up a four goal lead for his team.

It was Kavanagh’s third goal of the quarter, all of them coming in a 2:17 span. After a very slow and disappointing first quarter, Syracuse was trying to regain momentum. Every time it looked like Syracuse would seize control of the game ended up being fools gold. When it looked like Mellen and Syracuse were going to successfully clear the ball, something the Orange normally does very well, Kavanagh and Notre Dame responded.

“For us not to clear the ball is kind of a telling story … it just means that mentally something was wrong today,” head coach John Desko said on his defense.

No. 7 Syracuse (5-3, 1-2 Atlantic Coast) struggled the entire game and was thoroughly outplayed in every facet by No. 2 Notre Dame (7-1, 2-0 Atlantic Coast) on Saturday afternoon in the Carrier Dome. The Orange suffered its worst loss of the season on the same day that team held a centennial celebration during halftime.

Ben Williams won the first face-off of the day, something that he struggled with throughout most of the game. But SU turned the ball over 30 seconds into the game, and less than a minute later Ryder Garnsey scored the first of five goals to give Syracuse an early 1-0 lead.

“I think that we’re pretty confident that when we run out offense and we’re patient, we’ll get looks that we’ll like,” Garnsey said.

Tim Barber gave Syracuse fans something to cheer about four minutes later when he ran from behind the goal all the way up until he was ten yards out, turned and fired in one motion to give SU it’s first goal in a 2-1 game.

Notre Dame won the ensuing face-off and Kavanagh found himself with the ball behind the goal. He ran towards the right sideline while a UND player set a pick on Brandon Mullins, who was guarding him. But Mellen picked up Kavanagh, harassing him and shutting him down until he was forced to give the ball up. Syracuse fans cheered later. But mere seconds later the ball was worked across the field to Bobby Gray who charged forward and pocketed the ball in the back of the net.

It looked like SU was going to find success in the third quarter when Jordan Evans scored the first two goals of the period through the first 5:12 to cut the lead to 9-6, but UND responded twice with Kavanagh to Garnsey goals. Evans scored a third goal later on but the Fighting Irish scored two more before the end of the quarter to open up a commanding 14-7 lead.

Syracuse switched into a zone defense to try and slow the Notre Dame offense. It worked early, but then UND found ways to score on that defense, too.

“Me and Ryder on that lefty corner right there, it was an easy two man game,” said Kavanagh, who had six assists. “I guess they just didn’t recognize Ryder coming from the backside to that lefty spot.”

Hill was pulled in the fourth quarter and backup Evan Molloy came in. Desko stressed that the blame couldn’t be put just on Hill for this loss, but added that the coaching staff might talk about starting Molloy after his impressive performance in practice and against the Fighting Irish.

Before the season started Desko stressed how he would look to his defensive unit to lead the way this year. He didn’t see that defense he envisioned today.

“It’s disappointing, to give up the number of the goals and really the mental errors with such experience back there,” Desko said.

Published on April 2, 2016 at 10:23 pm

Contact Tomer: tdlanger@syr.edu | @tomer_langer