It took a loss of high magnitude to see the other sides of Syracuse’s players.

The seemingly unbreakable Chris Daddio was finally broken. Kevin Rice, the offense’s top facilitator, took out his frustration on a paper cup in the postgame press conference, bending it over and over again.

And senior midfielder and captain Billy Ward, one to always speak up and address his teammates when they needed motivation, had no words for his team.

“It’s never easy when the season’s over,” Ward said on Friday. “It was definitely a tough, tough atmosphere.

“This is one that’s probably going to sting for a while.”

Syracuse’s year full of highs and lows ended on the latter. An unprecedented run in the second half of the season earned the Orange the No. 2 seed in the NCAA tournament, but unseeded Bryant fearlessly stomped into the Carrier Dome on May 11 and stunned the Orange, 10-9, in the opening round.

The upset swiftly ended SU’s hopes of returning to the NCAA championship game, and Syracuse’s senior class moved on without a national championship ring for the second straight year.

“We had a great team this year, probably one of the best I’ve ever been a part of,” senior Matt Harris said after losing to Bryant. “It’s not a great feeling, I can tell you that. I’m sure it’s going to take a day or two to kind of settle in.

“Right now, I just wish we could’ve had a couple more goals.”

The Orange kicked off the year with a pounding of Siena and a thrilling overtime defeat of Albany, but the roller coaster had hardly begun.

SU’s introduction to the Atlantic Coast Conference was not a welcome one. Struggles at the faceoff X reminiscent of the Orange’s biggest flaw a year ago struck again, the attack was still learning how to utilize newcomer Randy Staats and the defense was slow to mesh.

Three losses in three ACC games — with an upset of Johns Hopkins mixed in — had the Orange at 4-3 overall with its ACC and NCAA tournament hopes in jeopardy.

But after a 21-7 loss to Duke on March 23 came the senior meeting that sparked a turnaround.

“We had high expectations coming in this year,” Ward said. “Things weren’t going our way and it’s not like we were close in games. We were getting blown out. We just wanted to all get on the same page, and we did.”

Syracuse went on a six-game winning streak that launched it from the cellar of the conference to the nation’s elite, the end of it proving to be the climax of the Orange’s season.

SU drew Duke in the first round of the ACC tournament — which had blown out the Orange a month earlier, beaten SU for the NCAA title last May and knocked Syracuse out of the NCAA tournament’s first round in 2012.

And for 50 minutes of game time on April 25, it appeared Duke would continue to dominate before the Orange pulled off a miraculous comeback. SU tied up the score with 15 seconds left and Dylan Donahue scored the game-winner from the right doorstep with just one second left on the clock.

“You’ve got that one enemy, that one villain out there and the fact that we finally took them down gave us a lot of confidence,” senior goalie Dominic Lamolinara said.

It was the Orange’s highest point of the season. But unfortunately, there wouldn’t be another moment to rival that one.

Notre Dame held off a late surge by the Orange to win the ACC tournament two days later, and SU steamrolled Colgate a week later before heading into the NCAA tournament as the No. 2 seed.

But Bryant’s puzzling zone defense stymied SU’s attack and despite a fourth-quarter charge, the Orange fell short.

A week later, regret was the only thing on Lamolinara’s mind as he watched Bryant take on his former Maryland program in a game he felt the Orange should’ve been playing.

Instead, Syracuse is now more than a week into its summer vacation.

“I think there’ll be a time and a place when we can look back and be proud of what we did,” Ward said, “but at the same time, there’ll always be that one thing we never got.

“It was a great year. It didn’t end how we wanted it to, but that’s the game of lacrosse.”

Published on May 18, 2014 at 7:06 pm

Contact Phil: pmdabbra@syr.edu | @PhilDAbb