Dylan Donahue’s lightning-quick disallowed dagger highlighted everything Johns Hopkins couldn’t do.

Streaking down the right hashmarks, Donahue took a transition pass from Drew Jenkins before diving toward goal, faking a shot and burying the ball in the bottom-left corner. The goal was waved off, but it didn’t change that the Orange always outran the Blue Jays.

What was supposed to be a tale of two games – open play for the Orange, slow dissecting by the Jays – fused into one. And SU took both.

Buoyed by a 6-1 first quarter and only slowed by the second, No. 7 Syracuse (4-1, 1-0 Big East) saw off No. 5 Johns Hopkins (5-2) in front of 6,292 in the Carrier Dome on Saturday afternoon. The Orange outplayed the Blue Jays in the possession game as JHU found little alternative to feeding leading scorer Brandon Benn in close. Hopkins conceded mistakes on top of those SU forced, allowing the Orange to control much of the game, even when it wasn’t playing its preferred breakout attack.

“Off the ball any time a team is moving like we were, all six guys,” SU head coach John Desko said, “it makes it hard for the defense to focus on the ball, and as a result, I think that’s why we were able to get so many goals.”

The Johns Hopkins defense drowned in that pressure in the first quarter. After the Blue Jays’ Holden Cattoni opened the scoring on a man-up at the 11:50 mark, the Orange gradually went to work in its own half-field offense.

JHU’s Phil Castronova shadowed JoJo Marasco. The midfielder dodged around the back of Pierce Bassett’s goal, ducked his shoulder into Castronova, then backed away to dump a stomach-high pass into Luke Cometti, who equalized on the left side netting.

In 24 seconds, Henry Schoonmaker and Hakeem Lecky sent the Orange on its way. Both players blew past their markers and fired easy goals past Bassett. It was the heart of a 5-0, five-minute run for SU that stripped the Blue Jays of their trademark patience.

Mike Poppleton won the faceoff down 4-1, darted straight to goal and was denied by the post. As Sean Young, in his first start, continued to deny Benn, the Blue Jays’ offense collapsed on itself. The Orange’s focus was clear, but JHU failed to find a way around it.

“That was very obvious, but when that happens as an offense you’re supposed to attack from other areas,” JHU head coach Dave Pietramala said. “… There’s five other guys out there.”

The Blue Jays’ only semblance of an alternative spark came when the attack ran through Wells Stanwick. On the few occasions he escaped his defender, JHU looked dangerously potent. He jumpstarted a 5-2 second quarter for Johns Hopkins with a man-up left wing shot at 10:32 and added a pair of goals later in the quarter.

Hopkins took all the momentum into halftime, but the Orange rediscovered its rhythm after the break. When JHU got men behind the ball, SU was content to pull it out to the point, work the perimeter and wait for Cometti or Derek Maltz to tear open shooting lanes for Scott Loy or Billy Ward. And when Hopkins forced an entry pass for one of its 17 turnovers, the Orange gladly sprinted the other way in transition, dusting the Blue Jays and damming their comeback attempts.

“We just want to take it one possession at a time. But they kept answering. We would answer, they would answer,” Bassett said. “So a lot of credit to them, but we did not play very well when we tried to answer back.”

After the game, Pietramala stared at his stat sheet bewildered. Statistically his team had stuck with the Orange outside of the first quarter, pushing back and staying within four goals well into the fourth.

With JHU still within four with 3:30 left, the Orange swatted away one more JHU pass and trotted into its set attack. Resisting the urge to strike quickly, Cometti pulled the ball out for Ward to dance with around the perimeter.

The Orange faithful rose to its feet with three minutes remaining as if SU had the game won. Thirty seconds later, Marasco peeled up from behind the cage and picked out Donahue waiting to the right of Bassett’s crease.

He faked to the upper right corner and shot to the left, and sprinted away in celebration before the ball finished nestling into the net. This dagger stuck.

Said Pietramala: “They found the open guys … they played like a hungry team today, and we didn’t do that.”

Published on March 16, 2013 at 3:15 pm

Contact Jacob: jmklinge@syr.edu | @Jacob_Klinger_