The Syracuse men’s lacrosse team played in the Pumpkin Stick-Out on a dreary Saturday in front of a sparse crowd.

The Orangemen’s lethargic play matched that setting perfectly.

To conclude the fall season, Syracuse mustered only an 11-11 tie against Albany, an inexplicable 9-6 loss to Division II Le Moyne and a face-saving 13-5 win against Herkimer Community College.

Yes, the proudest moment for the defending national champions on Saturday was upending a junior college.

‘As a group, we just played really horrible,’ a despondent Mike Springer said after the tournament. ‘We looked like a rec team.’

Syracuse’s woes began in its first game, against Albany. The Orangemen were sloppy throughout the first quarter, throwing away passes and impatiently taking shots. Albany goalie Kevin Rae — en route to a 17-save performance — made five incredible stops in the quarter, not counting the many SU attempts that sailed wide. The Great Danes closed the quarter with a 2-1 lead.

To begin the second, lacrosse hierarchy was restored when Sean Lindsay and Mike Smith scored goals in the quarter’s first minute.

But Albany answered with three quick goals, proving that its play from the first quarter was legit.

Albany scored the game’s final goal with 1:01 left, when Mike Solazzo fired a rebound past Nick Donatelli, who relieved Jay Pfeifer in the second half. Solazzo’s tally finalized the unlikely outcome.

The score may have been tied, but the attitudes on the benches were opposite. Albany celebrated and exchanged high-fives while Syracuse looked more embarrassed than a man caught crying at the end of a chick flick.

‘We made a lot of turnovers offensively,’ SU coach John Desko said. ‘Defensively, we just didn’t play well at all. We had a lot of stuff in the crease with the other team scoring from the inside.’

Instead of regrouping and playing to avenge their sluggish performance in their next scrimmage, against Le Moyne, the Orangemen were again flatter than month-old Pepsi.

After jumping to a 3-1 lead behind goals from Smith, Lindsay and Dan DiPietro, the Orangemen made Le Moyne look like a powerhouse. The Dolphins scored four consecutive goals to end the first half and then three in a row to begin the second half to build an 8-3 lead.

Even when Syracuse finally scored, Le Moyne won the ensuing face-off and, seconds later, Paul Isgar blew undeterred down the middle of the field and fired a shot past Donatelli.

During Le Moyne’s assault on the Syracuse net, SU’s goalies looked lost, especially Donatelli, who let in four goals and made just three saves.

‘I didn’t think the goalies played well in either half,’ Desko said. ‘Some outside shots went in that they normally would save. They didn’t play up to their abilities.’

In the day’s final game, against Herkimer, Syracuse played mostly freshmen and sophomores. While the game lacked many of SU’s high-profile names, but the Orangemen simply had too much talent for the junior-college Generals.

SU’s Alex Zink scored four goals, and Tim Raschdorf added three. Zach Wallace dropped three assists.

Still, Syracuse’s players remained sullen.

‘I really don’t know. I wish we had … I just don’t know,’ Springer said, looking for answers for his team’s performance. ‘We were very flat. It just wasn’t there. No one was intense.’

Fortunately for Syracuse, the embarrassing results came in the fall and not in the spring.

‘We weren’t happy with the outcomes, obviously,’ Desko said. ‘But you’re not going to worry about it right now. We’ve got a lot of work to do. We’ve got to get some people back academically and physically ready to go. If we’re doing the same thing with the first unit, then it’s time to worry.’

‘I think it’s a good wake-up call,’ Springer said. ‘I think we’ll come out of this a winner. We all think that the only team that can beat us is ourselves. We really killed ourselves today.’

Published on October 20, 2002 at 12:00 pm