Cardiac Cuse Strikes Again With Syracuse Pulling Off An Insane 2nd Half Comeback To Advance To The NCAA Lacrosse Quarterfinals
It was 8-2. Eight to two. The Harvard Crimson were up big on Syracuse, and they were already thinking about how great that party on the bus ride back to Cambridge was going to be. Harvard has already won once in the Dome so far this season. This was a feeling that they were familiar with. This was a feeling they were comfortable with. And clearly, this was a feeling that they were TOO comfortable with.
Harvard was still up by 5 in the 4th quarter. Francis was streaking through Times Square. I'm sure every Syracuse alumni group chat was talking about firing Gary Gait. The Orange looked terrible offensively all day. Their spacing was terrible and their timing was off. They couldn't stack together big stops on defense. It looked like this one was over, but they just kept chipping away. And after Harvard took a bad penalty that was locked in for the full time, that's where Syracuse finally grabbed their nuts and started playing their style of ball again.
Just snapping that shit around on man-up. The ball and bodies are constantly moving. It's organized chaos, always looking for the perfect opportunity to strike. If you leave Trey Deere all alone on the back doorstep like that, then chances are you're already dead. Harvard had to find that out the hard way.
Before you could even catch your breath at 11-8, Syracuse immediately made it 11-9.
Before you knew it, we had a tie game in the Dome.
Syracuse scored 5 goals in literally less than 2 minutes to completely flip this game on its head. And in the 4th quarter, they finally took their first lead of the day.
That, boys and girls, is Syracuse lacrosse in its purest form. Just a bunch of ball players. It may seem like they try to be too fancy to some, but they just find themselves in a flow state. All of it comes naturally, and they find ways to get the ball from point A to point B as quick as possible. Point C is in the back of the net.
But just when you thought this game already delivered as much mayhem as possible, Harvard ends up getting possession with just under 20 seconds to play. Syracuse spazzes out defensively, and now this bitch is heading to overtime.
It was 8-2 Harvard at halftime. Harvard was up by 5 in the 4th quarter. Syracuse was up by 1 with 20 seconds to go. And now it's on to overtime. Chaos. Mayhem. Pandemonium.
Owen Hiltz had a pretty rough day leading up to overtime. He had 5 turnovers on the day, and went 0/9 shooting through the full 4 quarters of regulation. But once you get to overtime, none of that matters. The ball doesn't travel any differently out of your stick in overtime just because you didn't have your best game during the previous 4 quarters. So if you're going to go 0/9 shooting, you might as well just keep on shooting some more. Which is exactly what he did in overtime to deliver the final dagger in this one.
Perfect feed from Spallina. Perfect finish from Hiltz. Unbelievable game. And unbelievable win for Syracuse. Obviously it was super sketchy there for a while, but that's just Syracuse lacrosse. It's not always pretty, it's usually super streaky, but they find a way to get it done. And now they're back into the quarterfinals. Something about Syracuse playing deep into May just feels right.