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SALT LAKE CITY — Finish. That was the message Syracuse head coach Gary Gait delivered to his players heading into its West Coast showdown against Utah Saturday.

The Orange rode a two-game losing skid into the matchup. Both defeats came as a result of atypical mistakes from Syracuse. Missed shots. Turnovers. Goalie issues; Jimmy McCool was benched last weekend. Though, the failure to capitalize offensively is what irked Gait the most.

Gait’s spoken ad nauseam of how SU needs to figure out how to win games. For him, that comes through executing the program’s signature, high-flying brand of lacrosse. And after sinking nine spots nationally from their preseason No. 2 ranking, the Orange got their groove back Saturday. Four unanswered goals in the first six minutes and 13 seconds proved it.

No. 11 Syracuse (4-2, 0-0 Atlantic Coast) throttled Utah (1-4, 0-0 Atlantic Sun) in a 15-5 victory at Rice-Eccles Stadium, avoiding a three-game losing streak. Gait wanted to see the Orange take advantage of their opportunities. That’s all they did on Saturday. SU totaled 25 shots on net and 41 shots overall, ending with its most goals in a road game since April 2, 2024. Syracuse boasted 11 different goal scorers. Joey Spallina racked up a team-high three assists.

Utah, which turned the ball over 19 times and lost the faceoff battle 15-9, never stood a chance. SU led 11-1 at halftime, a run likely spurred by rage from the Orange after their two consecutive defeats.

“We just continued to build on our culture of focusing on the details,” Gait said postgame of Syracuse’s early offensive explosion. “And I think it showed in that first half.”

The win was a confidence booster for the Orange. A big one at that. Gait said after SU’s loss to Harvard that it can’t enter the playing field expecting a victory. It was clear from the get-go Saturday that wouldn’t be the case against Utah.

SU’s now in a slightly less contentious spot for its NCAA Tournament qualification. A loss to a below-.500 Utah team would’ve been disastrous. But the Orange are set to battle No. 6 Johns Hopkins on March 9, which is a precursor to their gauntlet of a schedule from April 5-19 — featuring marquee matchups with No. 1 Notre Dame, No. 3 Cornell and No. 7 Duke.

While Saturday’s resurgence didn’t occur against one of those top-tier opponents, the performance was much-needed for SU. It flexed its attacking speed and group of lockdown long poles, qualities that thrust Syracuse into national title hype before the 2025 campaign. Time will tell if Gait’s guys can match the same execution against better talent, though Saturday showed SU isn’t far off from reaching its peak performance level.

“I think we were just trying to hold each other accountable. I don’t know if there’s anything that really changed,” Gait said of Syracuse’s win over the Utes. “They just focused on cutting out the noise from the media and everybody else and just focusing on ourselves. So I think that really helped.”

Some sloppiness persisted for the Orange against Utah — they coughed the ball up 17 times throughout the game — but the difference? They finished. And did so with regularity. A 7-1 first-quarter lead spelled out the inevitable.

Midfielder Wyatt Hottle got the scoring going with an unassisted tally at the 11:01 mark. Fellow midfielder Sam English did the same mere seconds later, weaving from the left to right flank and slotting a shot past Utah goalie Colin Lenskold. Two more scores in quick succession, one from Owen Hiltz and another from Luke Rhoa, capped off SU’s 4-0 game-commencing run.

Gait’s worries about his team’s finishing ability dissipated as the game’s progress was non-existent on Saturday. A minor blunder allowing Cade Faulkner to get near McCool and convert to make it 4-1 was among the few mistakes Syracuse committed. The Orange went right back to domination. A highlight-reel pass from Spallina, where he hit Trey Deere at the right crease with a pristine feed from 20 yards away, closed out the first quarter as SU led by six goals.

The second quarter was much of the same. Utah won more consistently at the faceoff X, but that barely mattered. The Utes didn’t do anything inspiring on offense, as long poles Billy Dwan and Riley Figueiras put attacks Luke McNamara and Ryan Stines in a dungeon without any escape routes. Utah moved the ball fine, yet couldn’t find any pockets of space. It finished the first half with 10 turnovers and eight shots on goal, most of which went right into McCool’s chest.

All the while, Syracuse kept up its unabating offense. Spallina tacked on a pair of second-quarter assists, including one perfect dish from X to a cutting Finn Thomson, who placed his shot into the top-right shelf as Lenskold hardly reacted. From Faulkner’s goal, SU went on a 6-0 run to seemingly close the half with a 10-1 advantage.

Until Payton Anderson got his number called with less than 10 seconds left in the second.

The 6-foot-3 freshman hauled in a pass from Spallina behind the cage before darting forward from X. Anderson braced through contact from Mikey Crane as he wrapped around the right side of the crease, then dove and fully extended his body to get a point-blank chance on Lenskold. This wasn’t “Air Gait,” but rather, “Air Anderson.” He converted on the spectacular goal, dumping salt into the Utes’ first-half wounds as the Orange led by 10 at the break.

When asked if Anderson’s goal reminded him of his playing days, Gait shrugged off the notion.

“I didn’t think about that,” Gait said with a chuckle.

Nothing encapsulated the Orange’s demolition of the Utes more than the game’s final three minutes. Within that span, defenders Michael Grace and Dwan each netted pole goals. And to make matters more absurd, both were on shots taken from near the restraining line on the opposite side of midfield. Lenskold was caught out of position twice, and Grace and Dwan took full advantage.

Syracuse’s second half wasn’t world-beating by any means. Gait said he wished the Orange executed at a similar rate to the first half. Regardless, the game-ending pole goals allowed SU to finish in style and spark immense jubilation from its sideline.

“That’s probably the most I’ve celebrated,” Figueiras said. “I’m not a celebration person. But when (Grace and Dwan) both scored, especially to kind of put the game away, is pretty cool.”

Published on March 1, 2025 at 4:15 pm

Contact Cooper at: ccandrew@syr.edu | @cooper_andrews