Big three game stretch for the Orange coming up, starting on Saturday against the Irish. After a huge come from behind win against Duke, how does SU come out in their first away game of the season? Have to imagine playing outside did indeed help, but this will involve travel and staying in unfamiliar surroundings. Can they come down from the high of beating a conference rival and top five team in order to stop another top ranked conference foe?
On paper both teams look pretty similar - both have played seven games with Syracuse having an extra win. Both have disappointing losses (Colgate and Richmond) and good wins (Duke, Maryland). Stats wise both teams seem to rely on their top seven scorers (SU top seven has scored 110 points, ND's has 104). It doesn't look like the Irish have a prototypical quarterback so playing defense against them should be interesting, I think stopping the two knowns in Costible and Gleason are paramount. I am unsure of where they will line up but have to imagine Kennedy and Mellen will draw them. The other players can hurt you as well so it is important other defenders play well. I think 'Cuse should matchup well, Notre Dame is quite large on offense (I think the majority of players are over 6'). This is a game that calls for players like Cunningham and Bomberry.
It looks like SU will have the edge on face-offs, but these things can get tricky and the Irish are facing-off at 55%. Offensively SU will need to play better than they did against Duke. I think playing the Devils will help, as the Irish seem to have similar defensive setup - very good defensive players all over the field but a goaltender saving under 50%. Cuse will need to work for good shots. I wonder if they will pole Trimboli or Curry? ND has good shortsticks so I don't think SU can rely strictly on their midfielders to create all the offense. It seems like Desko is still experimenting - Cook playing mostly midfield against Duke instead of playing mostly attack which he did against Rutgers, Seebold seeing important minutes after not playing for a few games, etc. Would really like to see the offense come out and start hot for once, but whatever gets the job done!
As always good thoughts.
ND is a tough opponent to game plan for, they are a lot like us (as you noted) and to a lesser extent Duke, they utilize a depth of scoring versus a clear leader like a Sowers or Spencer.
Gleason leads the team with 20 pts (12,8) with Costabile right behind him with 18 (16,2). Both are listed as midfielders and though I have watched a couple of ND games this year I can't recall if both actually play middie or one gets run at attack. Assuming both are actually playing midfield SU will almost assuredly double pole. If I had to guess I would say Mellen on Gleason and Fusco/Fernandez/Kennedy on Costabile. Gleason is tied for the team lead with 8 assists so I think Mellen will draw him regardless. Jackoboice (9,8) is like Solomon/Cook in that he sees runs at attack and middie and I think ND does its best to try and get him matched up on a shorty. I assume he will run attack for the most part and he will draw Cunningham/Kennedy. Kennedy maybe needed here as Jackoboice is tied for the team lead in assists and of their two feeder types. Willetts is the big attackmen who is almost exclusively a scorer (15,3) and is tied for 2nd with the most points with Costabile. Clearly this will be Bomberry's guy. Tyson needs to stay home and not wander this game as Willets takes a ton of shots (12 last game) and is not much of a feeder at all. Connor Morrin is the third attackmen who has 11 goals on the year. I could see SU shorting him if Costabile and Gleason are both running at midfield as SU isn't shorting either of those guys. Grant Murphy would seem to be a good matchup here.
On paper I would agree with you that SU appears to match up well but I think it depends on which defense shows up. Is it the one that pretty much locked down Duke last Sunday or the one that gave up 14 goals to Rutgers including 8 to Charalambides. ND has more depth of scoring this year then they have had in a while which makes them more dangerous then usual. There not a real uptempo type team but there FOGO has 4 goals so he will try and take it to the rack. I am very interested to see how SU decides to match up personnel wise especially coming off of that performance against Duke where the D was dominant in the 2nd half. SU has struggled in this type of game previously when there is depth of scoring and we can't use Mellen to lock someone down but we excelled at it last Sunday against a better offense so I am not sure what to expect.
Form an offensive standpoint I think its pretty clear that SU needs more of what we saw in the 4th quarter versus Duke then what we saw from the first 3. SU was great on the EMO but we certainly can't rely on that to bail us out every week. SU has to get more of the attack unit then it has been getting save for Solomon. ND's D while not as good in Goal as it has been in the past is excellent at SSDM and for the most part at close D. Cohen and Crance a formidable 1-2 punch at Close D and will likely mark Rehfuss and Solomon. Voight was pretty much a non factor as Duke simply packed in the middle and didn't slide away from him. We pulled Voigt or ran Solomon through the Box but instead of Cook we went with Seebold at attack. Cook looked pretty good getting runs at attack against Rutty, not sure why we didn't go back to that. Seebold has gotten these runs before and hasn't really done much and last Sunday was pretty much the same. I don't have an issue getting him some PT but I think Cook is certainly better suited for those minutes at least at this point.
From a middie standpoint it will be a tougher go then usual as ND has excellent SSDM's. Schantz, who it feels like has been there for about a decade is finally a senior. I think ND is likely to pole Curry and put Schantz on Trimbo. Lipka and Buttermore really need to make some hay here as the other two guys will have their hands full. Buttermore has been pretty quiet the last two games and really struggled against Duke when they threw a pole at him. He was bound to slow down after that torrid start but we need him getting back on the score sheet this week. I am hopeful that Quinn is back and we can start to run some numbers at ND to wear them down a bit. Magnan played a few possession against Rutgers but I don't recall seeing him vs Duke. Assuming Quinn is back you could see a 2nd line of Buttermore, Quinn and Magnan. You would have to think O'Sullivan and McKinney also have to be close at this point to returning if their not out for the year. I suspect ND will try and copy Duke by hustling back and jamming the middle/crease to slow down any potential fast or secondary breaks. Duke did an excellent job of this on Sunday. ND wants to make this a 6 on 6 game as much as possible while SU should look to push whenever we can. ND's goalie is under 50% for the year so if we can get enough quality shots off we will break through.
Tough to get a great feel on this game. First true road game and coming off a great win but where the offense was non existent for 45+ minutes. Biggest concern is the attack unit, just don't think were getting enough from there and Desko/Donahue are to slow to pull Voigt when teams are successfully shutting him off. Solomon is doing his part and Rehfuss finally broke through a bit late against Duke but for a large part of that game it felt like Solomon was our only effective attackmen. From a FOGO standpoint, ND's guy is good and at about 55%. They also like to double pole so this should be really fascinating matchup. I thought SU was outstanding at the X against Duke who has a pretty good FOGO themselves. Phaup really put in an outstanding performance and the wings were again excellent.
Hoping we can find away to get the W Saturday. It would really put this team in a great spot down the stretch for not only the ACC tourney but the playoffs. The Duke win was certainly enormous but this three game stretch (ND, Hob, Cornell) is a very difficult one with three teams that are wildly different. Getting a win Saturday would give SU some solid breathing room if they dropped one of the following two games.
