Day by day and dodge by dodge, Chris Daniello’s confidence grows. Goal by goal, more people notice.

‘I’m feeling pretty good,’ Daniello said following his second-straight three-goal day, this one in Saturday’s brain-numbing bore of a 10-3 victory over Rutgers. ‘Pretty confident. Starting to feel loose out there. Comfortable.’

Sure, Saturday’s game was boring. It was a cakewalk by a Syracuse team sleepwalking through its fourth game in 15 days. Still, despite the tedium, there are positives to spread around. Daniello and fellow attack Stephen Keogh notched hat tricks. Goalie John Galloway shined for the second game in a row – eight saves and one goal allowed this time. Gavin Jenkinson controlled the faceoff circle, taking seven-of-nine draws. After two wins this week, the bitter taste of the Big City Class loss to Princeton has faded. Three regular season games remain.

All of this is well and good as the Orange jostles for playoff position. And all is well and good with the Syracuse attack line, now that Daniello has begun to assert himself.

‘We’re happy,’ Desko said, ‘very happy with how he’s come along, especially this last half of the season he’s played so far. He’s starting to put some points up and looked easy while he was doing it out there, too.’ Desko added, ‘I thought he really got into a groove. I thought he looked very comfortable out there early.’

Who is Chris Daniello? For starters, he’s short (5-foot-7) and stocky (182 pounds). He’s a junior. He majors in finance. He played midfield at John Jay High School in Cross River, N.Y. He switched positions and now shares the left attack spot with Tim Desko.

Because Daniello plays on an attack line with passing wizard Kenny Nims and sneaky right-handed finisher Stephen Keogh, he floats in the ether, a lesser-star in Syracuse’s constellation.

But because Daniello favors his left hand and plays attack, he’s a crucial puzzle piece for the Orange offense.

See, an attack line needs balance: Guys who can pass, guys who slip into open space, guys who cause matchup problems, and yes, guys who shoot left-handed and guys who shoot right-handed. An unbalanced attack line – too many feeders and too few finishers, or too many righties and too few lefties – limits options.

Last year, the roles were ironclad. Nims would dance and create from behind the cage. Mike Leveille could do that and more – but he also had a wicked left-handed shot. Keogh and Greg Niewieroski split time on the right side.

But Leveille’s graduation left a void on the left.

Nims is still Nims. He zooms around the field and sets up: He tallied a low-key goal and two assists against the Scarlet Knights.

Keogh has displaced Niewieroski, and leads the team with 34 goals, almost all of them courtesy of his other-worldly ability to slip into space on the crease.

Cody Jamieson, a mega-hyped transfer from Onondaga Community College with a mega-hyped left hand, was supposed to replace some of Leveille’s scoring. But the NCAA clearinghouse jammed up Jamieson’s paperwork. He practices with the team, but remains ineligible for games.

Enter Daniello. Well, sort of. He spent the early days of the season misfiring on layups and jockeying with Tim Desko for playing time. ‘It was kind of hard to get comfortable,’ Daniello said.

They still split time. Daniello has scored 16 goals this year, Desko seven. Both have two assists.

But Daniello has asserted himself as the de-facto starter. Against Cornell on Tuesday, he strung together a hat trick. On Saturday, Daniello played the first quarter and the third – he sat out the fourth after getting leveled following his final goal.

He scored in the first off a transition feed from Nims, then dodged for his other two goals. Both times, he scooted out from behind the net and spun off defenders, using moves he practiced over the summer. Back in high school, he never had to play like that.

‘I wasn’t really used to coming around the cage and shooting like that,’ Daniello said. ‘Shooting around a defender.’

Daniello’s dodging is another weapon for the Orange to use.

Last year, a left-handed attack man would often dodge from behind the net and abuse defenders. He was taller than Chris Daniello. He drew much more attention.

Of course, Chris Daniello is not Mike Leveille. Of course not. But he could be something.

Andy McCullough is the enterprise editor at The Daily Orange, where his columns appear occasionally. You can reach him at ramccull@syr.edu

Published on April 12, 2009 at 12:00 pm