On Monday night, Syracuse (4-6, 1-2 ACC) has a chance to rebound against Cornell (9-1, 3-1 Ivy) after a pair of tough losses. Although that’s no easy task, especially with the way both of these teams have been playing recently.
On the Syracuse side, things have not gone well as of late. The Orange have dropped two straight contests, both losses concerning for their own reasons. Two weekends ago, SU scored its lowest goal total of the season, and allowed its most goals all year in a 22-6 blowout loss to now 16th ranked Notre Dame. On Thursday, the ‘Cuse got a break from ranked competition when the team traveled to take on UAlbany, but still dropped that game 14-12, its first loss of the year against an unranked opponent.
“Again, we didn’t finish on our opportunities, we got the shots, they didn’t go in, they got the ball back…” head coach Gary Gait said. “We got a bunch of stops, I thought our defense played pretty well to get some stops. But we couldn’t hold them, we need to do better work on the offensive end and we didn’t get it done.”
Tucker Dordevic still managed a hat trick in the Orange loss, as the redshirt junior paces SU in goals, assists and points (36-11-47).
Cornell, on the other hand, has been rolling. Big Red has lost just once this season, and they’re coming off a commanding 17-9 triumph over eleventh ranked Harvard, landing them as the sixth ranked team in the nation at 9-1. Not only that, Cornell also comes into Monday’s matchup with a 12-game non-conference win streak on the line that dates all the way back to 2019. Interestingly, the Big Red’s last non-conference loss came at the hands of the Orange, 13-8 on April 9, 2019.
Cornell’s offense is led by the two-headed monster that is John Piatelli and CJ Kirst. Piatelli, a senior, leads Big Red in scoring with 34 goals in 2022, and is also a top ten scorer all time for the program with 115 career scores. Kirst, a sophomore, paces his team in assists with 17 and total points with 49. The Cornell defense is anchored by senior Gavin Adler, who was named an Inside Lacrosse midseason first-team All-American, causing 13 turnovers and winning 31 ground balls so far this year.
Opening faceoff between Syracuse and Cornell is scheduled for 7 p.m. on Monday night. Make sure to tune into WAER’s coverage of the game ahead of time, starting with GZA Countdown to Faceoff at 6:30.