CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. —  Dox Aitken picked his stick off the ground as the rest of the players battled for the ball which had just launched out of his mesh. Across the field, Ian Laviano scooped the ball and flung it back to Aitken, who stood alone.

SU’s defense scrambled. Aitken dished the ball once more to Mike D’Amario, who scored with no SU defender near him for UVA’s final goal in the 11-10 Cavaliers victory.

All season long SU had struggled to recover in unsettled situations, and it caught up with them on Friday night at Klockner Stadium. After an undefeated regular season in the Atlantic Coast Conference, No. 1 Seed Syracuse (7-6, 4-0 ACC) couldn’t overcome its defensive lapses in its first ever tournament matchup with No. 4 seed Virginia (11-4, 1-3) in the ACC semifinal.

“Syracuse likes to play with a lot of pressure,” Virginia attack Michael Kraus said. “We knew that coming in and we just focused on handling that pressure and once they got overextended we could find those holes … and we capitalized on them today.”

The defensive holes have been prevalent all year and carried throughout Friday night’s game. Syracuse scored less than a minute into the game off a turnover forced by redshirt sophomore defender Nick Mellen, who drove Kraus into the ground and subsequently knocked the ball out of his stick.

As Peter Dearth celebrated the goal with his teammates, Mellen looked back at Kraus and nodded his head before looking over to the UVA bench and pounding his chest in satisfaction. The newly named All-ACC first teamer had gotten the better of UVA’s top scorer on his first opportunity of the night. That wouldn’t last, though.

Syracuse refers to the area in front of its net as “the house,” and it serves as the essential part of the defensive scheme. When the house isn’t protected, things unravel. On Friday, the unwinding started right after the Dearth goal when Aitken scored on an assist from Kraus. Aitken streaked through SU’s defense unguarded as Dami Oladunmoye battled to catch up and Brett Kennedy tried to slide late. Neither made it in time, and Aitken waltzed through the heart of SU’s defense en route to an easy goal.

Krauss contributed to all five of UVA’s first half goals. Twice he drove from the X or goal-line extended and gained top-side leverage on SU’s defense. Once squared up on the SU goal, Kraus fired in goals despite heavy stick pressure from Mellen, whose attempts to lift the bottom hand of Kraus failed repeatedly.

“I thought (Kraus) dodged well early in the game, they picked for him to slow down Nick from covering him a couple times,” SU head coach John Desko said. “I thought he shot well and saw the field well.”

On the three other first half goals, Kraus served as a distraction opening up the opportunity to feed teammates. Prior to UVA’s second goal, Kraus received a pass from Mikey Herring behind the cage. As each SU defender took a step in the direction of Kraus, the sophomore flipped the field, feeding midfielder Matt Moore near the restraining-box line for a wide open shot and goal.

The Cavaliers won 18 of 25 faceoffs and scored on 11 of their 16 shots on goal. Whatever SU brought to the table in terms of caused turnovers (seven) or shots on goal (20), Virginia negated with efficiency.

“We were getting the ball around,” Moore said. “It was just subtle moves they don’t see coming. They just think we are passing the ball around.”

In the third quarter, SU again slid inefficiently. As the defense scrambled to cover Aitken on one side of the crease, Marcus Cunningham and Tyson Bomberry each hedged off the crease, leaving room for a feed into Mike D’Amario. The Cavaliers attack caught the pass directly in front of SU goalie Dom Madonna with time to fake up before finishing past Madonna.

Until Friday, defensive lapses hadn’t hurt SU. Someone had always stepped up. In the first Virginia game, it was Tucker Dordevic’s four goals. Nick Martin won the last five faceoffs against Duke, while Madonna tied a season-high for saves in the win over Notre Dame. And most recently, Brendan Curry scored twice in one minute before assisting on an overtime winner against North Carolina.

In the ACC Championship semifinal, none of the above happened. The heroic performance never came. It looked like it might when Seth Delisle, SU’s secondary faceoff specialist, scored with less than two minutes remaining.

Then Aitken lost his stick only to regain it for an assist. Dordevic’s final drive to the cage was stopped by UVA goalkeeper Alex Rode. For the first time this season, the offense failed to bail out the defense and SU lost to an ACC opponent.

Published on April 27, 2018 at 11:11 pm

Contact Josh: jlschafe@syr.edu | @Schafer_44