Chris Daddio sat down for dinner with family and friends at Varsity Pizza on March 16 to celebrate Syracuse’s 13-8 win over Johns Hopkins.

One week later, Daddio stood at midfield of Villanova Stadium to explain a harrowing defeat, about 15 yards away from the spot where he lost 12-of-14 faceoffs in a loss to the Wildcats.

He has to forget it and move on. It is the nature of the job — win the ball in a battle that takes milliseconds. It is what he tells the group of freshman faceoff men about the job he’s been doing since he was 7.

“I always ask him questions on the sideline like, ‘Hey, what’d you do this time? What’d you do differently?’” said freshman faceoff specialist Cal Paduda.

Despite owning that veteran role, Daddio, a junior, has struggled to consistently own the X against opponents. He has won 48.7 percent of faceoffs taken this season — essentially the same percentage as last year, when he won 49 percent. His up-and-down play continued against Villanova when he won just two faceoffs, a far cry from his taking 20-of-33 in SU’s season-opener against Albany. He has taken the most faceoffs for Syracuse in all but one game this year, and appears to still be its go-to faceoff specialist seven games into the year.

Daddio took his first faceoff when he was a second-grader in the Loudon County youth league in Virginia. His older brother, Kyle, began playing lacrosse and taking faceoffs as an eighth- and ninth-grader. Kyle Daddio, who went on to play for Mount St. Mary’s, passed on everything he learned to his younger brother.

So Daddio learned moves his peers had no idea how to do, and won the ball in ways they couldn’t.

“I like the idea of having the pressure put on me,” Daddio said. “You being the guy to get your team the ball.”

On Saturday, he couldn’t. His brother was there, and he reminded Daddio of the faceoff man’s mantra: “Every faceoff’s a new game.”

Assistant coach Lelan Rogers grounds Daddio with criticism after almost every faceoff, sometimes telling him he does not have “it.”

“It” happens when a faceoff specialist hits a streak, when he’s tuned into the referee’s whistle seemingly before it happens. Momentum builds with each win as they keep piling up.

When that happens, Rogers says nothing.

When a faceoff specialist is on a hot streak like that, Paduda said it feels like his hands are “floating.” Like he is gone before the whistle.

In reality, it is timely anticipation.

On days like the one Daddio had against Villanova, it’s the opposite.

Daddio is admittedly at his best popping the ball out quickly and breaking the other way. But when he is too slow by tenths of a second, it can be too late. The abysmal performance at the faceoff X against Villanova was hard to watch for Paduda, who learns from Daddio daily.

“You always just feel you can’t buy a faceoff, like everything’s going wrong,” Paduda said. “It’s almost like the more you try, the more you’re losing.”

But as Daddio tries to bounce back from his worst performance of the season, he is going back to his roots. He is searching for the same drive that brought him to the sport as a 7-year-old, and the short memory of a faceoff specialist.

Said Daddio: “We want to get over the hiccup and get back to this year, what we’ve been doing well.”

Published on March 27, 2013 at 1:44 am

Contact Jacob: jmklinge@syr.edu | @Jacob_Klinger_