Syracuse avoided a second consecutive season-opener upset last Friday against Colgate, cruising past the Raiders, 21-14. The win came on the back of Chase Scanlan’s seven-goal effort, but the Orange gave up 14 or more goals in a game just three times all of last season — and hadn’t conceded that many in a season-opener since 2013.

“We’re not happy with 14 goals,” SU head coach John Desko said. “We think we can do a better job there. I think there were even times where Drake Porter made some one-on-one saves where they could’ve had a couple more goals.”

Here’s a look back at the tape to see what went right and what went wrong on defense in SU’s first game of the season.

Picking off Mellen 

Colgate didn’t beat Nick Mellen one-on-one a lot, Raiders head coach Matt Karweck said after the game. Where it succeeded offensively, Karweck said, was through screens that forced Mellen to switch or fight through contact, losing a step on his man. Looking back at the film, though, this wasn’t entirely true. For most of the time Mellen was in, Colgate simply avoided his side of the field or attacked via options that weren’t being guarded by him.

The intent to pick, though, was evident from the Raiders’ first possession. They screened off Brett Kennedy twice in the first 20 seconds of the game. Then, Colgate forced a switch behind the cage with Brandon Aviles and Peter Dearth. The Raiders didn’t attack Mellen directly until midway through their second possession, but Mellen navigated the screen with ease.

Mellen was mainly matched up against Griffin Brown, Colgate’s leading scorer from a year ago. The senior midfielder tried rejecting the screen a few times and actually got a step on Mellen, but look at how fast Mellen recovers to prevent a clean shot. Andrew Helmer slid over to help as well.

Brown actually found success trying to take on Mellen after dead ball situations. He scored one of his four goals by coming from behind the cage and using the net to create separation. Mellen stumbled over it once, giving Brown enough space to come out to the side of SU goalie Drake Porter and slot it home. Here’s a play from the first half where Brown beat Mellen with speed.

Adjusting without Mellen

Chasing Colgate’s Brian Minicus through the Syracuse defensive zone, Mellen planted his right foot awkwardly. He managed four more steps before falling to the Carrier Dome turf. Despite walking off on his own power — but with a limp — Mellen wouldn’t return. Without him at close defense, SU gave up six more goals.

But the number alone is deceiving. The first two goals after Mellen left came in transition. Then, Colgate beat SU midfielders twice. One came on a man-up situation, and the other was off a bad line change. Long-stick midfielder Jared Fernandez was late coming from the sideline into the defensive zone and a Colgate player flashed for a step-down shot in the middle.

When Colgate set up its offense in Syracuse’s end, Grant Murphy, Nick DiPietro and Kennedy at close defense excelled.

“They’re at a very high comfort level right now,” Mellen said before the season. “I wouldn’t even say there are holes, it’s more like we gotta fill spots.”

Murphy also has a long reach, which he can use to do things like this:

And this:

Desko said before the season that Mellen’s going to cover the best attack with Kennedy taking on the second-greatest dodging threat. Depending on the extent of Mellen’s injury, that’ll shift to Kennedy taking on the prize assignment, which seems like not too big of a jump, at least for the first four weeks of the season.

Kennedy shifted to taking on the Brown assignment on Friday and had no trouble. He’s two inches taller and 14 pounds heavier than Mellen and actually had an easier time taking Brown in one-on-one situations. Here, Kennedy stays in front of Brown before getting aggressive and taking the ball away from him:

Helmer time

Andrew Helmer will largely be splitting time with Jared Fernandez at long-stick midfield, and he likely won’t get a run at short stick given SU’s depth there (Dearth, Dami Oladunmoye, Brett Barlow). But Desko said he’s a great communicator on the field for the defense before the season, and here’s the perfect example of that.

He’s talking while the ball goes through the X, then jumps to the slide on time. Later in the game, Colgate scored off a similar play from the side of the net because Murphy slid late even though there wasn’t a threat backside from Colgate.

Published on February 10, 2020 at 10:21 pm

Contact Arabdho: armajumd@syr.edu | @aromajumder