Kevin Rice scored four goals against Notre Dame, including the game winner.
SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- No. 10 Syracuse (5-3, 1-3 ACC) picked up its first Atlantic Coast Conference win with an 11-10 victory against No. 7 Notre Dame (4-3, 2-1 ACC) on Saturday. Junior attackman Kevin Rice scored the winning goal with 2:05 left to hand the Irish their first conference loss of the season.
"It's a great win for us," said Orange head coach John Desko. "For Notre Dame to come in here having the success they've had, especially their stingy defense, and we were able to put up double figures. That was big. It was a great total team effort coming off last week's loss. It meant that much more for us to come out and play well."
Rice tallied a game-high six points on four goals and two assists. He paced a starting attack unit that combined for 10 of Syracuse's 11 goals. Fellow attackmen Derek Maltz and Dylan Donahue contributed three goals each. Donahue added an assist to finish with four points. Randy Staats, who bumped back and forth between midfield and attack, recorded a career-high three assists.
While the offense got the glory, Rice was quick to credit senior faceoff man Chris Daddio as the single biggest reason Syracuse came out on top.
"I couldn't be more proud of Chris and how he played today," said Rice. "We played pretty awful last week in every aspect of the game, but Chris catches most of the blame. That's why it was so huge that he came out and played the way he did today. He deserves most of the credit for the win."
Daddio won 15-of-24 (.624) draws, outdueling Notre Dame's Liam O'Connor who entered the game second nationally in faceoff winning percentage. O'Connor finished the game 33.3 percent at the X (7-21), more than 35 percent below his season average of 68.5.
In the first quarter, Daddio was 3-of-6 on draws to help Syracuse grab a 3-2 lead. Most of the scoring came in the latter stages of the opening frame as the two teams combined for four goals in the final five minutes, including scores by Donahue and Notre Dame's Conor Doyle in the last 60 seconds.
A man-up goal by Notre Dame's Eddy Lubowicki at the 9:01 mark of the second quarter tied the game, but Syracuse scored three times in the span of 1:13 to up 6-3 with 6:24 to go in the first half. The run included back-to-back goals by Maltz and Nicky Galasso 18 seconds apart.
Nick Ossello stopped the Orange scoring spurt with an unassisted goal with 5:06 to play in the half, and the Irish scored two of the quarter's last three goals overall to make it 7-5 Orange at the break.
In the second half, the two sides traded tallies until consecutive goals by Donahue and Rice in the first two minutes of the fourth quarter pushed the SU margin back to three, 10-7. However, the Irish weren't deterred and responded with three straight goals of their own. The last by Jim Marlatt, which tied the game at 10-10 with 6:29 left.
The visitors pushed for the go-ahead goal down the stretch, but couldn't solve Syracuse goalie Bobby Wardwell. He made three saves in the last five minutes, including a stuff of Trevor Brosco with 2:22 remaining. The crucial stop on Brosco resulted in a fastbreak that led to Rice's winning goal.
Wardwell played the second half and recorded six saves (three in each quarter) to earn the victory. Senior Dominic Lamolinara started in the cage. Lamolinara played the first two quarters, stopping seven shots to help Syracuse gain the lead in a game that it never trailed.
Connor Doyle led the Irish with four goals. Jim Marlatt and Will Corrigan had one goal and one assist each. Matt Kavanagh recorded two assists. Shane Doss played the whole game between the pipes for the Irish and made 11 saves.
