It’s been one of the few holes all year for the Syracuse men’s lacrosse team. But with only two games remaining in its season, the Orangemen think they’ve found a way to plug it.

Syracuse has struggled with face-offs all season. Although the Orangemen hold a season advantage in face-offs, 166-152, they’ve been outmatched, 34-17, in their two losses this season.

SU head coach John Desko has been using a carousel of players, substituting another man when the previous becomes ineffective. After using as many as seven different players at the X, SU has possibly found its man in freshman Danny Brennan. Since seeing time in the Loyola game two weeks ago, Brennan is 13-for-15 at the X. Against Albany on Saturday, Brennan was 9-for-9.

‘You expect to (win matchups) from week to week, and we haven’t seen that this year,’ Desko said after the Albany game. ‘We’ve put certain people who we thought would match up well and we haven’t seen that. We were a lot quicker to go to Danny today.’

The Orangemen play Massachusetts on Saturday in their last regular season home game. The game starts at 1 p.m. in the Carrier Dome. SU will play at Georgetown on May 7 at 3 p.m., to conclude the regular season. Brennan will figure prominently in SU’s final two games and its pursuit for its ninth national championship.

Junior Geoff Keough, in his first season at SU after transferring from Fairfield, began the year as SU’s primary face-off man. Occasionally, he’d be relieved by junior Jake Plunket. But the duo struggled early in the season. Against Johns Hopkins on March 20, SU won only 4 of 20 face-offs.

In that game, Plunket went 1-for-11, and Keough was 3-for-7. Desko even inserted freshman longstick Steve Panarelli to attempt some face-offs and freshman Jon Jerome. SU has also used junior Chris DiMarco and senior Michael Powell, who, until Saturday, had never taken a face-off in a game.

Powell won his only face-off attempt Saturday. Desko said after that game that he wanted to give Powell experience because he may be used in that role later in the season.

‘It’s something we have in the arsenal,’ Desko said.

After Brennan, Keough has the highest face-off percentage at 55 percent. Plunket wins at 47 percent, Panarelli has won 50 percent and Jerome has won 39 percent.

UMass is perhaps struggling just as much as Syracuse at the face-off X. It has only won 48 percent of its face-offs this season. Georgetown, though, has one of the strongest units Syracuse will see. The Hoyas have won 67 percent of their face-offs. They’re led by Andy Corno, who has won 69 percent of his attempts this season.

For Syracuse to hold the advantage in the final two games of the season and in the postseason tournament, it will have to be more consistent on face-offs. Saturday’s game was the first time in almost four weeks the Orangemen won the face-off advantage.

Published on April 26, 2004 at 12:00 pm