No. 8 Syracuse men’s lacrosse (7-2, 0-0 Atlantic Coast Conference) began its two-game swing out in Colorado with a matchup against Air Force (1-6, 0-0 Atlantic Sun Conference). The Orange handled business with a 17-11 victory over the Falcons. The win extended SU’s streak to three, including wins against No. 16 Penn and No. 12 Johns Hopkins. It wasn’t always pretty, but SU took charge on the back of a historic day from attackman Joey Spallina.
Nearing the end of a six-game stretch on the road, No. 8 @CuseMLAX took down @AF_Lax 17-11 in a game it never trailed after the first quarter.@JKlein and @BChad214 had the call from Colorado Springs. pic.twitter.com/u5rzyHTzLj
— WAER Sports (@WAERSports) March 12, 2026
While the final margin was lopsided, just one goal separated these two teams at halftime. SU led in shots, shots on target, was dominating the faceoff X, and had more ground balls. Air Force shared the wealth, with five goals from five different contributors through the first half. Head coach Gary Gait thinks the travel gave his team a tough time getting out of the starting block.
“It's a long trip, a lot of travel, a lot of this, a lot of that. I think it was just a bit of a slow start and sluggish…after we we got through the first quarter we played a lot better defense.”
Air Force netminder Matt Deedy was also a force to be reckoned with throughout the first half. SU was finding the holes to get wide open shots, but the goalie saved nine of 15 shots through the opening half hour. SU head man Gary Gait gave Deedy his flowers, but also placed some of the issues on his team.
“They're not used to getting that wide open shots right in front of the goal like that. They didn't finish and and we turned the ball over quite a bit on one-on-ones with the goalie. In the end, we settled down and started shooting a lot better and we finished shots.”
Syracuse turned it on coming into the second half. SU scored four goals to widen the gap to three in the third quarter. The final period opened with four scores in under two minutes, with three of them coming for the ‘Cuse. The Orange eventually lengthened that to a 6-1 run to put the dagger in the Falcons.
It’d be a mistake to talk about this game and not discuss the play of SU’s star man Joey Spallina. The senior dropped a career-high eight assists in the contest to five different teammates. The Syracuse program record for assists is nine, achieved by program legend Tim Nelson three different times.
The eight-point performance also brings Spallina within one point of second all-time in the program points standings. He’s got 286, while the Powell brothers each have 287.
It was an effortless performance from the Orange attackman. The team captain figured that he’d just keep taking what Air Force was giving him.
“They were they were kind of in like a zone look, right? So, you know, I knew pretty much knew coming in that I was going to be behind the goal feeding the guys. I honestly love that, right? If I had zero goals and whatever amount of apples, I think I'd be the happiest guy.”
It was a very back and forth matchup between @CuseMLAX and @AF_Lax.
— WAER Sports Talk (@WAERSportsTalk) March 13, 2026
Even with the tight scoreline, @JKlein never feared that the Orange would fall.
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The road has not been the kindest to faceoff specialist John Mullen. The first four games of the trip saw the junior go 36 of 73 at the X, below 50%. Against Air Force, he was back to his dominant best, winning 16 of 23 opportunities. It’s his first game winning more than two-thirds of faceoffs since the season opener against Boston University.
Syracuse finally wraps up its road trip on Monday with one last game in Colorado against Denver. The Pioneers knocked the Orange out of the NCAA tournament in the second round in 2024. SU has a chance at revenge at 8 ET on Monday. We’ll have all the coverage starting at 7:30 with McClurg Remodelling Countdown to Faceoff here on WAER.
