Mike Powell doesn’t show this side very often.

He’s a lacrosse star from a lacrosse dynasty family. He’s supposed to move fast, score a lot and smile easily. But Saturday, the perfect lacrosse hero gave a glimpse of his not-always-perfect world, one where he can’t smile all the time.

“Nothing is clicking for me,” Powell said after his Syracuse team drubbed No. 3 Loyola, 15-6. “It’s a slump I guess. But that’s tough for me because I’ve never really been in a slump before. I just haven’t been having fun this year.”

You never would have guessed so much. It seemed to be the same perfect Powell on the field. He still moved faster than anyone else in the Carrier Dome, spinning right and left until his defenders felt dizzy.

He still joked with his teammates and even his opponents, once lightly patting the helmet of Loyola goalie Mark Bloomquist after the netminder had made an improbable save.

It seemed so much like the perfect Powell. Sure, he scored a little less (three points) and missed a little more (connecting on one of five shots), but he was the same fireball of energy.

“To me, he is moving very well,” head coach John Desko said. “He has had some good assists. I thought he played well.”

Yet Desko didn’t think so midway through the first quarter, when Powell took the ball on the left side of the net and fired a behind-the-back shot over the goal. Since no Syracuse player was near the backline as the ball sailed out of bounds, Loyola took over possession.

Desko screamed, “Come on Mike, you gotta wait.”

Just a period later, another unusual Powell mistake left Desko and the rest of the Carrier Dome shocked again. In a one-on-one situation with Bloomquist, the Syracuse sophomore faked high and then low before dumping the ball right into the goalie’s stick.

“That was just a horrible shot,” Powell said, vehemently shaking his head. “Awful. Terrible. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”

Whatever it is, Powell hasn’t been doing it for long. He scored 26 points in Syracuse’s first four games. Over the last five games, he’s had just 14. Still, his 40 points lead the team.

“I think early on he had so much success point-wise,” Desko said. “For him to put up that kind of points that early, he maybe felt like he could do that all year.”

Not with defenders draped all over him, pushing him to the ground and forcing him away from the goal — even when he doesn’t have the ball.

Loyola senior defender John Brasko did just that Saturday, and Powell came away with more turf burns than ever. And, even if they didn’t tear up his legs, they seemed to scar his mentality.

“Defenses are starting to shut me off,” Powell said. “They are keying on me so I can’t touch the ball. If you can’t touch the ball, that takes the fun out of it.”

“We have so many weapons that one guy can’t always get the points,” said Josh Coffman, who led Syracuse with six points. “He did seem a little down after the game.”

He seemed so down, in fact, that he couldn’t much enjoy what otherwise was an almost perfect game for Syracuse. Nine Orangemen scored, combining to embarrass a previously undefeated team.

“I’m happy about what this team did,” Powell said. “I don’t know what is going on with me right now. Maybe I’m forcing everything. Maybe I’m just forcing too much.”

This time, though, he isn’t forcing that poster-boy-perfect smile.

Published on April 7, 2002 at 12:00 pm