Spencer from Scanlan with 1:11 to go. Loyola 15-12, and that might about do it. George Owens<doc-sep>Teams: Syracuse Orange (9-4, 2-2) vs. Loyola Greyhounds (11-4, 7-1) Day & Time: Saturday, May 11 at noon ET Location: Ridley Athletic Complex, Baltimore, Md. Line: N/A TV/Streaming: ESPNU/WatchESPN Radio: TK99/105 Loyola blog: College Crosse Rivalry: 19-5, Syracuse Current Streak: 2, Orange First Meeting: 1967 — a 9-7 win for Syracuse down in Baltimore. Last Meeting: 2009, a 14-13 win for the Orange, also in Baltimore. Other than the comeback win over Cornell in the NCAA Championship Game, this was the closest game of the year for the eventual national champs. Syracuse came back from four down to take out the Greyhounds, with Dan Hardy tallying the winning score with a little over a minute to go. Head Coaches: SU: John Desko (21st year, 253-85); Loyola: Charley Toomey (14th year, 145–68) Coach Bio: Toomey played for Loyola as a goalkeeper from 1987-90, and was part of the 1990 Final Four squad. After graduating, he was an assistant with the Greyhounds for a couple years after, and playing for the Baltimore Thunder (NLL) and Boston Blazers (MILL) before calling it a playing career. He went into coaching full-time, with the Naval Academy Prepatory School, then Navy, and then the Severn School before joining his alma mater as an assistant in 1999. Since taking over as head coach of Loyola in 2006, he’s now made 10 NCAA Tournaments and two Final Fours (with one title). Last Year: Loyola took home the Patriot League title, beating Lehigh, 15-8. After beating Virginia in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, they fell to eventual champion Yale, 8-5 in the quarterfinals. Last Game: The Greyhounds lost to Army, 7-5 in a defensive struggle in the Patriot League Tournament. After a low-scoring first half that saw the Black Knights up 3-2, the teams finally started scoring in the fourth, each netting three goals. But it was too late for Loyola to make up the advantage. ”Fear Me, I’ve Killed Hundreds of Timelords”: Pat Spencer plays attack for Loyola, and put up 94 points this season (including 40 goals). Notably, he’s only scored four goals over the last four games (all in a regular season game against Army). But he’s also tallied double-digit points in three different contests this season — as recently as the Lehigh game in early April. If Syracuse Wins: SU will move on to face the winner of 1-seed Penn State and UMBC. The Retrievers have a history of knocking off top seeds in the NCAA Tournament, as you’re very well aware of. If Syracuse Loses: The #FireDesko crowd gets their moment in the sun, and the Orange’s season ends earlier than hoped yet again. Fun Fact No. 1: Syracuse is 3-0 over Loyola in the NCAA Tournament, picking up wins in 1990, 1997 and 1999. The Orange(men) made the Final Four all three of those years and took home the championship in 1990. Fun Fact No. 2: The most saves that SU’s ever tallied in a single home game was against Loyola back in 1994. Alex Rosier and Garrett Esposito combined for 28 stops in the 16-10 win.<doc-sep>By Patrick Stevens | Contributing writer BALTIMORE – Balance suited the Syracuse men’s lacrosse team just fine for much of the spring. And it did for more than a half of its NCAA tournament game at Loyola on Saturday The combination of facing one of college lacrosse’s biggest stars and a lack of possession in the fourth quarter, however, sank the Orange in a 15-13 loss in the first round at the Ridley Athletic Complex. Loyola attackman Pat Spencer had three goals and six assists – in the process setting the NCAA record for career assists with 226 – and Bailey Savio was 10 of 13 on faceoffs in the second half as the eighth-seeded Greyhounds (12-4) erased a four-goal deficit. “It’s great to have one guy like that who can take control,” Syracuse coach John Desko said. “You look at our scoring all year long, we share things pretty well and we do it by committee. But in a game like this when you have that one guy, that one quarterback who can take control of the other guys, it’s big.” True to form, Syracuse (9-5) had four players – Brendan Curry, Stephen Rehfuss, Nate Solomon and Jamie Trimboli – score two goals. Coupled with last year’s first-round loss to Cornell, it marked the first time the Orange has failed to win an NCAA tournament game in back-to-back seasons since 1981-82. It was an abrupt finish for a team that entered the ACC tournament at 9-3, only for both North Carolina and Loyola to author fourth-quarter comebacks. “You see these tears, it’s not just because we lost,” Curry said. “It’s because we won’t have those seniors on our team ever again. Walking in as a freshman, being scared or whatever, and those seniors who were juniors were the first people to make you feel comfortable. They truly loved you, and that’s what makes this year, especially for us, so hard. You could feel the love every time you walked in the locker room.” Syracuse was well-positioned for much of the afternoon, holding a 9-7 lead at the half and a 12-8 advantage with less than three minutes to go in the third quarter. But back-to-back penalties provided the Greyhounds with extra-man chances they cashed in to cut the deficit in half. Spencer then assisted on back-to-back goals early in the fourth quarter to tie the game – and set the career assists record – as he got the better of Syracuse defenseman Nick Mellen. “I felt like I had him from the start,” Spencer said. “He’s a good player. I just think there was a spot on the field I was able to get to. That’s a credit to my teammates. The spacing on the field is critical. It’s tough to guard one guy, no matter who it is, in the open field.” Another element in the comeback was a complete effort from Loyola’s midfield. Freshman Chase Scanlan has contributed for much of the season, but both John Duffy and P.J. Brown have struggled to gain traction at times. Duffy had two goals and an assist against Syracuse, while Brown scored both the tying and go-ahead goals. It was the first time all season that each of Loyola’s three starting midfielders scored multiple goals. “We obviously have a game plan coming in this week,” Mellen said. “We knew who their targets were and we knew who we were going to give a lot of our attention to. But at the same time, we also knew they had some other players that put a lot of points up throughout the season. Hats off to them. Their second half was outstanding. We were up four (late in the third quarter), and they just had a little more than we did at that point.” While Loyola goalie Jacob Stover (16 saves) had a stellar day, including a point-blank theft of Trimboli in the middle of the Greyhounds’ 7-0 run, the Orange still had a capable day on offense. That is, when it had the ball. Syracuse dominated ground balls 31-19 in the first half, but was on the wrong end of a 25-13 margin in the same category in the second. Much of that problem was created on faceoffs, where the Orange picked up two violations in the third quarter and were forced to exercise caution to avoid giving Loyola extra-man chances. “You tend to hold more, and he had no violations,” Desko said. “So our guys were holding and he was able to move quickly and take some chances and he does a great job of anticipating the whistle, anyways. Frankly, our wings had to play so much because our wings are defensive players and wings on the faceoff, which is pretty grueling. I think it took its toll on us, especially in the fourth quarter.” Whenever Syracuse did finally get the ball down the stretch, it was rushed and sometime discombobulated. The Orange committed six of its 14 turnovers in the final 15 minutes, and Rehfuss’ goal with 21.6 seconds to go was Syracuse’s only score in the final 18:31. “Toward the end there, we had some bad turnovers, myself included,” Rehfuss said. “We couldn’t really gather ourselves. It’s the way games go. It’s a game of runs. We went on a run. They went on a run.” And when Loyola went on its, it could turn to a willful Tewaaraton finalist eager to extend his career another week at the Orange’s expense. “Spencer,” Desko said, “certainly played up to his potential today.”<doc-sep>The Syracuse Orange will open the NCAA men’s lacrosse tournament on the road Saturday against eighth-seeded Loyola at the Ridley Athletic Complex in Baltimore. It’s the 12th consecutive NCAA bid for the Orange, and 36th in the last 37 seasons. It’s the first time since 2012, though, that Syracuse isn’t opening the tournament at home. The Orange, 9-4 and ranked No. 11 in the latest USILA coaches poll, are coming off an 11-10 loss to North Carolina in the quarterfinals of the ACC Tournament. Loyola is 11-4 and ranked No. 7. The game is scheduled to start at noon and will be telecast on ESPNU. Below is the list of channel numbers for ESPNU in the Syracuse area: Spectrum: Channel 370 (SD & HD) Verizon Fios: Channel 573 (HD) and 73 (SD) DirectTV: Channel 208 (SD & HD) Dish Network: Channel 141 (SD & HD) New Visions: Channel 759 (HD) and 73 (SD) You can also watch online through Watch ESPN or by using the Watch ESPN app for tablets, mobile and streaming devices. You’ll need the online sign-in info for your cable or satellite provider to access WatchESPN.<doc-sep>
The Syracuse Orange men’s lacrosse team opens up the 2019 NCAA Tournament against the 8-seed Loyola Greyhounds at noon ET today, obviously with the entire season at stake. If you’re not heading down to Baltimore to catch the action live, you’re watching on ESPNU/WatchESPN. After going 9-3 in the regular season and 2-2 in ACC play, the Orange had to face North Carolina (a team they already beat) on the road in a 4/5 game as part of the league’s new tournament structure. Syracuse lost, dropping to 9-4 and then falling out of a seeded spot in the bracket. This, despite wins over Army, Duke and Johns Hopkins (all of which made the NCAAs). Loyola, meanwhile, squandered the top seed in the Patriot League Tournament after going 11-3 (7-1 in conference play). They lost to Army in the second round of that event by a score of 7-5. The Black Knights went on to take the league title over Lehigh. If Syracuse can score the mild upset over the Greyhounds, they’ll be off to the quarterfinals to face either top seed Penn State or UMBC. The Nittany Lions have never been to the Final Four in the sport, and this is only their fifth NCAA Tournament bid. Meanwhile, the Orange are looking for their first trip back to the Big Barbeque since 2013 (a crushing loss to Duke in the championship game). But that’s all getting ahead of ourselves... Check out more on the Syracuse vs. Loyola matchup here, and leave your comments below before, during and after the game. G’ORANGE!