No. 8 Syracuse men’s lacrosse ends 6-game road trip with nail-bitting 13-12 win over No. 14 Denver

No. 8 Syracuse men’s lacrosse (7-2, 0-0 Atlantic Coast Conference) capped off its lengthy six-game road trip against No. 14 Denver (4-3, 0-0 Big East Conference) Monday. The Orange snuck away with a 13-12 victory that came down to the final shot of the game. With the win, SU earned its fifth top-20 victory this year and the 968th win in program history, the second-most all-time among Division I programs.

It has been a long road trip for Syracuse head coach Gary Gait’s squad. The Orange haven’t played a home game in 37 days and, for the first time since the 1970s, SU played six games on the road. Despite the road trip starting off rocky with two losses to Ivy League teams, Harvard and Princeton, the Orange got back to their winning ways and fired off four straight victories.

“We have come a little closer," SU head coach Gary Gait said. "Came out [from the road trip] 4-2. [I'm] pretty happy with that. We've been all over the place.”

However, it was not easy to outlast the Pioneers. The ‘Cuse got off to a quick start as midfielder Payton Anderson netted the first goal of the game 55 seconds in.

“He’s working on building confidence," Gait said of Anderson after his career-best four-point performance. "We know he has a lot of talent, a lot of ability. Today he had those opportunities and he made the most of them.”

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But the SU offense hit a scoring drought after that. It took more than 15 minutes for the Orange to find the back of the net again. Syracuse and Denver traded goals all second quarter, but thanks to a man-up goal with five seconds left from midfielder Luke Rhoa, who recorded a career-high four goals, Gait’s team took a slim one-goal into the break. After halftime, the Orange came out red hot. SU netted the first three goals of the quarter and started to pull away from Denver. Syracuse headed into the final quarter with a comfortable five-goal lead, but that lead shrunk to two in less than two minutes.

With 11 minutes to go in regulation and just a small two-goal advantage, the Orange turned to a player they've gone to all season long: Joey Spallina. The senior spun off his defender and netted one bottom right corner past Denver goalie Grayson Manning for his only goal of the day. But that goal helped Spallina pass Casey and Ryan Powell for second on SU's all-time points list. The attackman has 288 career points and is 20 points away from breaking Mike Powell’s record as all-time points leader in program history.

Spallina’s lone goal at the 11-minute mark was the last time the Orange scored in the game. But it was all Syracuse needed offensively to defeat Denver. The Pioneers scored two goals and cut the lead to one with under four minutes left, but strong play from SU’s defense and goalie Jimmy McCool — including preventing Denver attackman Marek Tzagournis from tying the game on the doorstep with three seconds left, — led to SU’s seventh win of the season.

“The defense did a good job staying together, playing as a family, and got the stop at the end we needed and [we're] going home with another win,” McCool said.

But this wasn’t just a common win for the Orange, this one was a bit different. One served with revenge. The last time SU and Denver faced off was in the 2024 NCAA Tournament quarterfinals. Denver led by one at halftime, and scored the first four goals of the third quarter to defeat Syracuse 10-8, ending SU’s dreams of playing on championship weekend in 2024 and capturing a national title. Two years later, Syracuse served revenge on Denver’s home turf.

No. 8 SU returns to the Dome on Sunday to face No. 13 Georgetown. The last time the Orange played on home field was over a month ago, when they took down then-No. 1 Maryland 11-9. It will be the first regular-season meeting between the Orange and the Hoyas since 2013. Game time is scheduled for 1 p.m. We’ll have all the coverage starting at 12:30 with McClurg Remodelling Countdown to Faceoff here on WAER.