Syracuse Ends Dozen-Year Semifinal Drought, Edges Princeton in Thriller

HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. — Syracuse is, in fact, back.

Owen Hiltz scored the go-ahead goal with 3:50 remaining as the sixth-seeded Orange earned a rollicking 19-18 victory before 8,209 at Shuart Stadium to earn their first trip to Memorial Day weekend since 2013.

Joey Spallina rang up four goals and four assists, and Hiltz and Michael Leo both delivered hat tricks for the Orange (13-5), a longtime titan in the sport that had dropped its last four quarterfinals.

“Syracuse has that tradition where it’s kind of [get to the] final four or you really didn’t do anything, which could be fair or not be,” Spallina said. “I think it still holds true, and I think this was our goal, and I don’t think we’re done yet.”

The Orange will meet either second-seeded Maryland or unseeded Georgetown in next Saturday’s semifinals in Foxborough, Mass.

Chad Palumbo scored six goals to tie a Princeton NCAA tournament record shared by Jesse Hubbard (twice), Chris Massey and Coulter Mackesy. Peter Buoanno added three goals and three assists, and Mackesy had three goals in his final game with the third-seeded Tigers (13-4), who erased a five-goal deficit in the second half before Syracuse scored the final two goals.

“It was one of the craziest games I’ve ever been a part of,” Palumbo said. “We went down, and there’s no quit in this group. We talk about two words with this group, trust and love. There’s a lot of trust and a lot of love in this squad. Those are obviously tough moments when you’re tested, but I think the way we responded is a testament to how tight this group is.”

Syracuse and Princeton spent much of the 1990s and early 2000s taking turns winning national titles, a few times at the other’s expense. They met 10 times in the postseason between 1992 and 2003 — four national championship encounters, plus three in the semifinals, two in the quarterfinals and once in the first round.

Even those powerhouse teams — which featured a string of Powell brothers on one side, and a sequence of Princeton title teams that peaked with a championship three-peat from 1996-98 on the other — never quite shared a game this wild.

The 37 goals tied an NCAA tournament record for most goals in a quarterfinal, and even that one — Yale’s 19-18 defeat of Penn in 2019 — required overtime. It also fell one goal short of the postseason record for goals in any game; Johns Hopkins beat Towson 22-16 in the 1994 first round, and Yale turned back Penn State 21-17 in the 2019 semifinals.

This game shared the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it quality of all of those contests. Those arriving five minutes in didn’t catch the first six goals. A quick run to the concession stand at the start of the second quarter would have cost the chance to see a couple Princeton goals in the opening minute.

And the final 67 seconds of the first half, after the Orange went up on Trey Deere’s man-up goal? Palumbo and Mackesy both scored, the latter drawing a two-minute unnecessary roughness penalty from goalie Jimmy McCool (12 saves).

Pivotally, John Mullen won the faceoff to end the half, giving Syracuse possession and helping it burn off the penalty. It soon started a six-goal run, going up 16-11 after Hiltz scored consecutive goals late in the third quarter.

“I think we’re at our best when the ball is just flying and we’re getting guys out into space and kind of creating and putting the defense in spots where they maybe have to think, and I think we did that a lot today,” Spallina said.

But was it over? Hardly. Princeton rattled off five goals in a little more than five minutes to tie it, three by Palumbo and the last by short stick Cooper Mueller. After swapping goals, the Tigers reclaimed the lead on Nate Kabiri’s score with 4:54 to go.

The advantage lasted all of 33 seconds, when Leo finished a Sam English feed to make it 18-18. At that point, the next goal was clearly important — but it felt like there could be a couple more after that.

The Orange went back ahead when Spallina zipped a pass into a seam for Hiltz, who finished from 10 yards out. It gave Spallina the first eight-point game for Syracuse in a quarterfinal since Ryan Powell also had four goals and four assists against Georgetown in 2000.

It was left to McCool to ensure 19 goals would be sufficient for Syracuse to make a trip east on Interstate 90 next week. He delivered twice, stopping Kabiri in transition with 2:15 remaining and then Tucker Wade on a low shot with 28 seconds to go.

The Tigers didn’t get another shot off, denying their senior class a chance to experience bookend trips to the semifinals. Princeton reached the final weekend in 2022, losing to eventual champion Maryland.

“Our goal is always to take these groups as far as we can,” coach Matt Madalon said. “This is a group we thought we could take really far. The buy-in from this group is truly incredible. We’re a keep-it-simple-stupid program in terms of systems and our approach, and we want these guys playing fast and creative, and they did just that.”

Syracuse did so as well, and it was the Orange’s ability to spread the Tigers out and win one-on-one matchups against a Princeton defense that was reluctant to slide initially that fueled a fan-friendly victory.

It was also, in many ways, the next logical step for a program that has methodically made its way back toward the top of the sport under fourth-year coach Gary Gait. A 4-10 debut in 2021 was ignominious, and Gait played the long game by investing oodles of playing time in freshmen the following year when Syracuse went 8-7.

Last season brought a trip to the quarterfinals and a 10-8 loss to Denver, after which Leo promised Syracuse would be back “in this exact same spot.”

So it was that the quarterfinals seemed like a line of demarcation for the Orange entering the year. Little before it would matter, and everything starting with it would — just like old times.

There were consecutive losses to Maryland and Harvard in February, and a three-game slide against Cornell, Duke and North Carolina last month. But it hardly matters now as Syracuse earned a place back onto a stage it often glided toward in the past.

It wasn’t easy to end a dozen-year drought, an eternity given Syracuse’s pedigree. And the Orange will have a chance to do even more next week at Gillette Stadium, the site of its last national title in 2009.

“Early on, we got caught up in the media and everybody having us No. 2, No. 3 in the country, and we hadn’t done it yet,” Gait said. “I think after we had a couple losses in a row, we said, ‘Hey, let’s not talk about the future. Let’s focus on winning the day, winning the week.’ And that’s what we did, and we’re still doing it. It’s still our focus. Our focus is winning the next game. It just happens to be the semifinal.”