BALTIMORE, MD –The 10^th-ranked Syracuse men's lacrosse team used a 4-1 mid-game run to turn a 5-4 lead into a 9-5 advantage and the Orange never let host Johns Hopkins get closer than three in the final 13 minutes in what became a 12-8 Syracuse win at Homewood Field Saturday afternoon.  The Orange improve to 5-2 with the victory, while the Blue Jays slip to 4-2.
 
The Blue Jays trailed 5-2 midway through the second quarter after back-to-back goals from Chuck Rawson and Hunter Chauvette trimmed the deficit to 5-4 with just over four minutes remaining in the period.  The Orange defense and goalie Jimmy McCool would then hold the Blue Jays to just one goal over the next 23 minutes while bookending Hopkins' only goal in that span with two goals on each side to fuel the 4-1 spurt.
 
The 5-4 Syracuse lead was 6-4 at the break when Joey Spallina took a feed through the crease from Luke Rhoa and scored from in tight to give the Orange the two-goal lead at the half.
 
The Orange would double the lead just over 90 seconds into the third quarter when senior Billy Dwan took a feed from McCool on a clearing attempt and fired home his fourth of the year.
 
Johns Hopkins trimmed the deficit to 7-5 on a Charlie Iler goal in transition with just under five minutes remaining in the third quarter and that score held into the fourth period, but back-to-back goals form Spallina and Rhoa in a 56-second span early in the period pushed the margin to four (9-5).

Twice the Blue Jays shaved the margin to three as Jimmy Ayers and Matt Collison wrapped goals around another from Spallina, but Collison's goal came with less than two minutes to play and Wyatt Hottle added an empty net goal in the final minute to account for the final scoring.
 
While McCool made 10 of 14 saves after the break to help the Orange maintain the lead, his counterpart, Oran Gelinas, was busy keeping the Blue Jays close in the first half as he turned away eight Syracuse offerings in the opening 30 minutes.
 
A first quarter that saw 20 combined shots netted just three goals with the Orange grabbing a 2-0 lead before Collison scored the first of his three on the day with 2:59 remaining in the quarter to get the Blue Jays on the board.
 
Collison evened things up just 39 seconds into the second quarter, but Syracuse answered with three straight in a span of just over two minutes to sprint out to a 5-2 lead.  The Orange had three chances to push the lead to 6-2, but a pair of turnovers and a big Gelinas save on Finn Thomson kept it a three-goal game and Rawson and Chauvette's goals came on consecutive Blue Jay possessions to account for the 5-4 score before Spallina's goal late in the period made it 6-4 at the half.
 
Johns Hopkins Notes of Interest
• Collison paced the Blue Jays with three goals.  The hat trick is the ninth of his career.
• Rawson totaled two goals and two assists and now has 14 goals and 13 assists in his eight games dating back to last season.
• Gelinas finished with 12 saves.  This is the sixth time in his career that he has recorded 12 or more saves.
• The Blue Jays outshot the Orange 53-33. This is the second time in six games the Blue Jays have generated more than 50 shots.
 
Syracuse Notes of Interest
• Spallina rang up seven points on four goals and three assists.
• Rhoa (2g, 2a), Thomson (2g, 2a) and Dwan (2g) all added multi-goal games for the Orange.
• McCool finished with 14 saves, including six in the third quarter and four in the fourth.
• John Mullen won 11-of-20 faceoffs and added one goal and 11 ground balls.
 
Up Next
Johns Hopkins will return to action on Saturday, March 14 when the Blue Jays welcome Navy to Homewood Field (1 pm / ESPN+).
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