GENEVA, N.Y. — Evan Molloy bobbed his head up and down while strutting out from the goal crease to the 30-yard line. He turned to his teammates on the sideline to his right and waved his arms up and down, a gesture meant for him as much as it was for his teammates.

By Molloy’s estimation he had let in six goals in a row. It was only four, but Hobart had cut Syracuse’s lead down to one goal and had a prime scoring opportunity in front of the net.

Molloy slid to his knees and stonewalled Hobart’s Sean Donnelly.

“We really needed that save,” Molloy said. “… (The defense) kind of broke down there and they needed me.”

In his first career start, Molloy rallied from a mid-game slump to come up big for the Orange. He made three difficult saves in a row to halt the Statesmen’s scoring run and maintain SU’s lead. The redshirt junior got the nod over Warren Hill, who had started the first eight games of the season, and made seven saves while conceding six goals en route to a 13-6 Syracuse (6-3, 1-2 Atlantic Coast) win over Hobart (5-5, 1-1 Northeast) at Boswell Field on Wednesday night.

Molloy’s complete game totaled more minutes than he had previously compiled through two and a half years.

“Those were saves that they needed at a very good time and that did provide them a little bit of momentum,” Hobart head coach Greg Raymond said. “… Those saves definitely helped the outcome of this game.”

Prior to the game, Syracuse head coach John Desko watched Molloy warming up and thought he looked “fairly relaxed” considering it was his first start. The goalie assumed he’d be nervous, but the nerves never kicked in.

Molloy was thrust into the spotlight during the Orange’s loss to Notre Dame on Saturday. He replaced Hill in goal during SU’s third straight loss and had five saves and allowed three goals in 11-plus minutes. Hill let in 14 goals and had four saves in 48-plus minutes.

After the game, Desko said Hill wasn’t to blame for the loss, but gave Molloy the start on Wednesday.

Molloy made two stops in a goalless first quarter before the Statesmen scored twice in the second quarter and snuck in a third goal with 16 seconds left in the first half.

Hobart picked up where they left of when the third started. Three goals in a row without a save by Molloy had the score cut to 7-6. The third of four goals squeezed through Molloy’s legs and barely rolled across the goal line before he could rake it back.

He threw his hands up at the referees and punched the air with his right hand in frustration.

A team that had blown leads late in two of its last three games looked like it could do it again.

“You get kind of deflated there when a team goes on a run like that,” Molloy said.

But then he made the sliding stop on the one-on-one. When Syracuse went man-down on Hobart’s next possession, Molloy stepped forward in the crease to send away an open angled shot from midfielder Mark Darden.

The stops piled up and so too did the goals for Syracuse on offense. Molloy was able to dig the Orange out of its most vulnerable position in the game and kick start the resurgence on the other end.

“He did well other than that in that run that they had,” Desko said. “And shortly afterward he made a couple big saves — and they would have been goals — and really kind of help us fight through it.”

Published on April 6, 2016 at 10:39 pm

Contact Jon: jrmettus@syr.edu | @jmettus