CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — For all the troubles that Syracuse has already encountered at the faceoff X, Virginia supposedly had it even worse.

Going into Saturday night’s game, the Cavaliers came in with a 46 percent success rate at the X to the Orange’s 51.6. But after one look at the final stat sheet two hours after the opening draw, that certainly doesn’t seem like the case.

“We were prepared coming into this game as far as who they were offensively and defensively,” SU head coach John Desko said. “The one guy who did surprise us was the faceoff man. We didn’t think he was going to win that many tonight.”

No. 6 Syracuse tried throwing four different faceoff specialists at the X to disrupt UVA junior Mick Parks, but nothing worked.

The Cavaliers (6-0, 1-0 Atlantic Coast) swiped 24-of-31 faceoffs en route to a 17-12 beating of Syracuse (2-2, 0-2) on Saturday night in front of 5,102 at Klockner Stadium. Difficulties at the X handicapped the Orange’s attack and leaves SU still looking for its first ACC win after its first two tries.

The faceoff guys weren’t the only issue, though. The Cavaliers killed the Orange in ground balls, 51-to-22, and scooped up plenty of loose balls that Desko said his team should have picked up after the faceoff whistle.

“The times that we did get it out,” the head coach said, “their wings beat us to the ball and that was disappointing because we’ve got some pretty good athletes there.”

Syracuse did grab a pair of early draws, and built an early 3-0 first-quarter lead off of them.

But when Parks and SU senior Chris Daddio lined up for a faceoff at the 5:59 mark, Parks ran off with it in a heartbeat. Sophomore attack James Pannell scored his first of seven goals on that possession and the game was Virginia’s from there on.

To start the second frame, Daddio won the faceoff himself, but his pass for Dylan Donahue was deflected, picked up by UVA’s Joseph Lisicky and taken down the other way for a goal.

“Dumb mistakes,” midfielder Scott Loy said. “You got to cherish your possessions, which we didn’t a lot of the times. You really got to take care of the possession and those few turnovers make or break the game.”

Daddio managed to win his team a total of five possessions in the first half and SU only trailed 8-6. But in the second frame, Parks took 13-of-15 against whomever Desko sent out there.

Faceoff specialists Mike Iacono and Austin Wentworth, and long-stick midfielder Peter Macartney each were thrown into the mix. Combined, they went just 2-for-9 against Parks, who was too quick to the ball for SU.

“Once you start shuffling our guys around and their guy’s still going after it and after it, he’s going to get more and more comfortable,” said Daddio, who finished 5-for-22. “But I don’t argue with the coaches’ decision. I wasn’t winning, so you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.”

But when the Orange wasn’t committing one of its 12 turnovers or stuck playing defense because of UVA’s faceoff dominance, its attack was efficient and kept Syracuse in the game.

Although the Orange mustered just 1-of-9 faceoffs in the third quarter, a 3-1 run kept SU down by just a goal. But the Cavaliers netted four goals in the last seven minutes of the third to take a three-goal advantage into the fourth quarter.

Hakeem Lecky’s fourth goal brought the Orange within two at 14-12, but Park beat Macartney for the next faceoff and Zed Williams’ goal on that possession sparked a 3-0 closing spurt for Virginia that ultimately finished the game.

It doesn’t bode well for Syracuse that Desko has bigger concerns than his team’s 0-2 start to its ACC era. Until the Orange finds consistency at the faceoff X, it might be a while before it finds its first conference win.

“Believe it or not, I thought we got better as a team tonight,” Desko said. “We got better as a team but it wasn’t good enough to beat Virginia. They just had too many possessions on offense.”

Published on March 1, 2014 at 10:02 pm

Contact Phil: pmdabbra@syr.edu | @PhilDAbb