There’s a reason John Desko wasted little time implementing his new offense during fall ball.

There’s a reason the men’s lacrosse head coach instructed two different sets – one motion and one zone – so that his team could master the easier motion offense right away while it honed in on the more advanced zone.

It’s worked. Players are comfortable running the sets, and there is little confusion of what they need to do. The most obvious and troubling part, though, is despite understanding the offense, it has not resulted in Syracuse’s historically high-scoring outcomes because of its poor shooting.

SU hasn’t scored in double-digits the past three games. When SU hosts Loyola on Saturday at 4 p.m. in the Carrier Dome, the Orange must maximize its offensive strength.

‘Right now it really comes down to shooting,’ Desko said. ‘We’ve been in some pretty good situations as far as where we are on the field, how close we are to the goal, and our angles to shoot have been pretty well.

‘Our offense has been working with exception to putting in goals in the back of the net. If you look at the number of shots we’ve taken, the number of saves the opposing goalies have made, and the ones that are going wide, I think that’s the disappointing part right now.’

Syracuse (1-4) only averages 10.8 goals a game, shooting 54-of-198 – 27 percent. What’s more frustrating for Syracuse is it hasn’t had problems finding the opportunities. But whenever SU tries to take advantage of those chances, rarely does the ball enter the net.

‘We’re starting to figure out each other and what we need to do to score,’ freshman midfielder Dan Hardy said. ‘We’re just not taking the right shots at the right times. Executing on offense isn’t happening right now. We all feel good about it going (into the game), but when we’re out there we’re doing the wrong things.’

The signs of offensive lapses clearly showed at the beginning of the season. After SU’s first two scrimmages against Fairfield and Le Moyne, Desko admitted he was surprised his team didn’t score at least 15 goals. But later that week, Desko, assistant coach Kevin Donahue and several players said after evaluating SU’s performance and watching game tape, they thought the Orange could correct its mistakes.

Too often, Syracuse didn’t spread out enough and it rushed too quickly to produce. SU typically plays at a fast pace, but Desko wanted his players to find the opportunities and make good use of them, not force the opportunities when there aren’t any.

Prior to the Maryland scrimmage, a reporter asked Desko if it worried him of the possibility that eventually his team would overextend the learning curve, thus making it too late into the season to justify it as part of the learning process.

Desko replied that concern served as the primary reason why he installed two different offenses. While his team runs a basic offense, it can continue to tinker with learning the other set.

A learning curve clearly hasn’t been an issue, but it’s more worrisome that the Syracuse offense only sparks in spurts. The only times SU played effectively came when Virginia forced the Orange to in the Cavalier’s similar up-tempo pace and against Johns Hopkins. In the game against the Blue Jays, Syracuse showed flashes in the third quarter by reeling off four quick goals.

‘I think our primary concern right now is putting together four quarters of good Syracuse lacrosse,’ senior attackman Brett Bucktooth said. ‘We haven’t been able to do that. Our defense did a really good job at times (against Hobart). But we had a couple of breakdowns on offense and defense.’

Syracuse had a chance to capture the win against Hobart on Tuesday. When the Orange trailed by one with 50 seconds remaining, Bucktooth tried to find attackman Joe Yevoli behind the cage but the ball went out of bounds. After Hobart turned the ball over, SU failed to convert on the last play. Against Loyola (3-3), the Orange must make use of the opportunities in a must-win situation.

‘We shouldn’t even need to bring the game down to the last second to score,’ Hardy said. ‘We just need to be scoring. Eight, nine goals a game isn’t good enough. We need to be at least scoring 15 goals. We have the guys to do that. We’re just not really playing together right now.

‘We just have to relax. If you look at teams in the past, they’re just playing out there and having fun. Right now it doesn’t look like we’re having fun out there. We just need to play lacrosse and do what we know how to do.’

Published on March 29, 2006 at 12:00 pm