BALTIMORE — For the seventh time of the afternoon, it was a one-goal game.

From 12 yards out, Holden Cattoni dropped down and whipped a sidearm shot past Dominic Lamolinara to bring Johns Hopkins within a goal with 9:38 left in the game.

The weight of playing so much defense in the second half had nearly worn Syracuse down from its four-goal lead. The Orange needed stops if it was going to stave off the Blue Jays.

And the defense delivered. Syracuse’s defense hung just tough enough.

“It was a team effort on defense today,” senior Matt Harris said. “I feel like every time the ball was on the ground on our end, we picked it up and made a successful clear and especially when we’re having a tough day at the X, that’s huge for us.”

With a stout defensive effort, SU held Johns Hopkins to just three first-half goals. But as the Blue Jays won faceoff after faceoff in the second half, the Orange’s defense finally wilted and allowed two separate 3-0 JHU runs — which were all scored by sophomore attack Ryan Brown.

But after Cattoni’s goal, the No. 10 Syracuse (4-2, 0-2 Atlantic Coast) defense clamped down and held No. 3 Johns Hopkins (5-1) scoreless the rest of the way to seal a 12-10 upset Saturday at Homewood Field. Dominic Lamolinara made 11 saves in his 60 minutes in the cage while Harris moved from his usual midfield location to join SU’s set defense.

“We’ve seen so much of the Hopkins offense…doing a great job picking mismatches,” SU head coach John Desko said, “and we thought we’d jump into a zone when we did that and it turned out to be a good matchup for us to slow some of that down. It took away the inside the crease area. We wanted to stay in the middle and force the outside shots.”

Defender Sean Young knocked down a pass in front of the cage from JHU’s Brandon Benn, then scooped it up and dished it out. On that possession, attack Kevin Rice buried Syracuse’s first goal of the day.

The Orange started with some man-to-man defense in the contest, but mostly utilized a tight zone that took away lanes and limited openings for Johns Hopkins’ attack. The Blue Jays often had to fire shots from the outside, which gave Lamolinara ample time to pick up the ball and make a play on it.

“In the end, the first half killed us and I don’t think we executed very well,” JHU head coach Dave Pietramala said.

In the third, Harris — who would also net the Orange’s 10th goal of the game — grabbed a loose ball in the box and flipped it ahead for a clear and an SU goal that extended the lead to two.

With Harris moving down to the defensive zone, Desko said, he brings senior leadership and communication to a group with two new starters from the end of last season.

“Matt coming down the past two weeks, we’ve gotten a lot better at communicating,” Lamolinara said. “He’s a captain. He’s been down there before, so he’s got all that experience. He just knows how to take advantage.”

But in the fourth quarter, Brown put the finishing touches on his eight-goal performance. The Blue Jays took complete control of the faceoff X and threatened to mount a comeback, down 10-6 going into the final period.

But after Cattoni’s goal cut the deficit to one, SU had no choice in the final stretch but to lock down.

A tough defensive stand forced a 30-second shot clock violation. Scott Firman forced a turnover, and midfielder Drew Jenkins pounced on it and cleared it to SU’s side of the field. Attack Dylan Donahue alertly snatched a pass to thwart a clear with 3:15 left, and then delivered the dagger a minute later.

Johns Hopkins still had some life in the final two minutes, but Lamolinara’s leg got a piece of the last shot of the game to deflect it and ensure the score stayed more than a one-goal difference.

“I thought defensively we did a much better job than we have in the past,” Desko said. “We got stops and we got the ball out to the other end of the field and that turned into goals.”

Published on March 15, 2014 at 5:53 pm

Contact Phil: pmdabbra@syr.edu | @PhilDAbb