Syracuse (0-1) lost its season-opener against Colgate, 12-9. The Orange had difficulty finding the lane offensively all game long and struggled back after the Raiders jumped out to a demanding 6-3 lead before the half.

Here are three takeaways from the Orange’s loss.

Faceoff competition

Coming into the season, the Orange never faltered that Danny Varello would maintain his role as the lead faceoff man for SU this season. As the team’s primary faceoff specialist a year ago, Varello won 134-of-279 faceoffs and struggled to gain momentum following a strong performance in SU’s thrashing of Binghamton in last year’s season-opener.

Varello started where he left last season off and lost his first four attempts before breaking free with the ball on his fifth attempt. The Orange then put Jakob Phaup into the game. The sophomore delivered. He won three of his first four attempts and awarded the Orange, who suffered all game long from offensive futility, valuable possessions to help cut into the Colgate lead.

In the fourth quarter, as the Orange threatened more than it had at any point earlier in the game, Phaup was the most frequent faceoff man for the Orange and won three-straight at one point during a two-goal stretch for SU.

Stagnant offense

After losing Brendan Bomberry to graduation last year, SU employed Bradley Voigt to be the third member of the Orange’s first attack line. Voigt didn’t score and only recorded two shots in the Orange’s loss.

In preseason, junior attack Stephen Rehfuss said that Voigt excelled at finding spots in front of the crease and putting in tapped shots — a skill Bomberry used often in his tenure with the Orange. But on Voigt’s first attempt, he faked one time too many as the goalie set into his position and hit the goalie right in the torso from point-blank range. Voigt’s contributions never materialized, and the Orange suffered their first season-opening loss since it joined the ACC.

Shot clock demo

In Syracuse’s first game of the shot clock era, the shooting wasn’t affected to much of an extent. The Orange averaged 36.3 shots per game in games within three goals a season ago and shot 36 times to Colgate’s 42 Friday. On multiple plays, though, loose balls that trickled away from offenses with the shot clock winding to an end were simply scooped and sent behind the end zone.

Published on February 8, 2019 at 9:13 pm

Contact Michael: mmcclear@syr.edu | @MikeJMcCleary