MLAX: Syracuse Holds On To Defeat St. John’s Away From The Dome

By Matthew Wieselthier NEW YORK, N.Y. — Syracuse and St. John’s were evenly matched early on.

Then, with 9:16 left in the first quarter, Brad Voigt found the back of the net to open up the scoring for Syracuse.  One minute later, Jordan Evans scored: that goal put the Orange up 4-0.

It seemed like Syracuse was about to go into cruise control. That couldn’t have been further from the truth. The Orange struggled to get anything started offensively, scoring only one goal in the 2^nd and 3^rd quarters combined.

While Syracuse couldn’t find the back of the cage, St. John’s started to creep back. Five minutes into the second half, the Red Storm was down just one goal. From there, the Orange hung on to its slight lead, squeaking out a 9-8 win.

The frigid temperatures certainly played a factor in Syracuse’s first road game.  However, according to head coach John Desko, it is the close game experience that was able to put the Orange over the top.

“I think the fact that we’ve been challenged in all these games and to be able to fight through it and come out with wins in all but one,” said Desko. “What doesn’t kill you makes stronger and hopefully we are getting stronger as we face these types of games.”

For goalie Evan Molloy, the close games have made him better.

“After the Army game, I wasn’t really happy with my fourth quarter performance,” said the redshirt senior, who had nine saves against the Red Storm. “I thought against Virginia, and here, I had my most saves in the fourth quarter so that was good for me personally.”

Molloy also recognized that it isn’t just him who has gotten better.

“As a team, it speaks a lot when you have the guts to battle in those one goal games and we only dropped one out of four of them and I think that’s good for us going forward,” he said.

The road forward for Syracuse is further south. The next game for the Orange is in Baltimore in a top-ten showdown against the Johns Hopkins Blue Jays next Saturday.