It finally happened. After three overtime losses and even more fourth-quarter collapses, Syracuse, at last, got it done in the final minutes to beat a top team in the nation in its regular-season finale. The Orange toppled Virginia 18-17.
After Billy Dwan tied the game at 17 with an outrageous backwards heave with his long pole, Virginia's Anthony Ghobriel won the ensuing faceoff. He sprinted straight to goal, but missed the cage. Nobody was behind the net to back it up, giving SU an opportunity to take its first lead in over 12 minutes. Virginia head coach Lars Tiffany said he chose not to call a timeout because of the aggressive, up-tempo flow of the game.
Then Sam English took matters into his own hands, despite being 0-for-5 prior to the game-winner. With 48 seconds remaining, English escaped a slew of defenders on the wing and found an open lane in the middle of the field, where he slotted it low past Matthew Nunes to give Syracuse an 18-17 lead. This was the first game in 2024 where Syracuse has been on the winning side of a fourth-quarter comeback.
“Guys made plays,” Syracuse head coach Gary Gait said. “We did everything we needed to this time, and that’s what we’ve been working on all year. Because in those same situations in some of our past games, we didn’t make the plays… Hopefully we turned a corner and we’ll be able to finish games consistently going forward.”
Scoring the final four goals to erase a three-point deficit in the final eight minutes, Syracuse did something it’s struggled to do all season: succeed in the clutch. In the end, two defensive stops in the span of 40 seconds sealed Syracuse’s first victory over Virginia since April 24, 2021.
On the final play, Tewaaraton Award nominee Connor Shellenberger, who had nine points, broke free at X and passed to McCable Millon. He was instantly run over by Dwan, and the ball went to Syracuse. But somehow, Nunes got the ball back on a heave down the field with a running interception, earning UVA one more shot to tie it. With the seconds ticking down, Will Mark came up with a huge save on Jack Boyden, and the stadium erupted as the ball was launched into the air.
Yet, it still wasn’t a “great 60 minutes,” Gait said. From 7:42 in the third to 9:18 in the fourth, the Cavaliers went on a 7-1 run that gave them a three-goal lead, but that’s when everything changed. Syracuse scraped a win using four different goal-scorers in the final minutes to win an instant-classic that will add to the already-storied history of this rivalry.
“These two teams have an incredible, rich history, and today we add to that,” said Virginia head coach Lars Tiffany. “Boy, what a game of runs, huh? Unfortunately, Syracuse had the last one.”
A “game of runs” is the perfect way to describe the newest installation of Syracuse-Virginia. There were six runs of at least three-straight goals for one team, the longest being six-straight Syracuse goals in an eight-and-a-half minute span during the first half.
