An orange mosh pit formed on the 30-yard line of the Carrier Dome’s turf. A few players ran to the sideline to collect the Kraus-Simmons Trophy, chivalrously marching it around the field. The crowd was in a frenzy.

Hobart won.

Wait, Hobart? The Statesmen hadn’t beat SU since 1986! Heck, most of this year’s freshman class wasn’t even alive in 1986!

But the upset, if you’re willing to call it that, did occur. After 20 years, Syracuse’s in-state foes finally won, edging SU, 9-8, in front of 3,778 fans in the Carrier Dome on Tuesday – many of whom made the trip east from Geneva.

Though seven games still remain, the Orange’s 23-year streak of qualifying for the postseason could be coming to a close. In men’s lacrosse, to obtain an at-large bid a team must finish at least .500 to be eligible. Syracuse currently finds itself at a dismal 1-4.

Both teams were looking for elusive victories after three-game losing streaks. Neither team was willing to budge, playing careful offense and stingy defense in a scoreless first quarter. But teams can’t win on defense alone, and the scoring picked up quickly.

‘We just haven’t been able to put 60 minutes of ball together,’ Syracuse head coach John Desko said. ‘Our defense did a good job for most of the first half and we couldn’t put our points up offensively.’

The result was a nail-biting, back-and-forth game, with no team ever taking a convincing lead. The recent meetings between the teams have been fourth-quarter affairs. Tuesday was no different.

Brian Crockett scored a goal from the left side off a pass from Mike Leveille with 1:35 left to cut a two-goal deficit to one. Each possession became crucial. Every groundball was like an all-out blitz. Whenever the ball went out-of-bounds, the referee’s call was watched like the presentations at the Oscars.

SU had its last-ditch effort when freshman Pat Perritt, who tied Joe Yevoli as the Orange’s leading goal scorer with two goals, started a charge toward net with 18 seconds remaining. He fought past Hobart defenders before slinging a laser toward Hobart goalie, Mike DeSantis, who deflected it behind the net where it rolled out with five seconds.

The attention turned toward the referee, who signaled Hobart ball. Game over.

‘I think there was some panic,’ Desko said. ‘With very little time left, we didn’t have any timeouts, and we just called a play that we had been running. Pat, all in all, did a good job just to get the shot off.’

SU hadn’t eclipsed 10 goals in its previous two games. Hobart was held under 10 goals its past three games. With neither team’s offense particularly sharp, it turned to defense, which hasn’t exactly been SU’s strength this season. The Orange entered Tuesday, allowing 13.5 goals per game.

It was evident in that first quarter, when possession time was a commodity. Both teams were playing smart, picking their spots to challenge and maintaining possession otherwise. The methodical pace was altered quickly into the second quarter, though, when freshman Matt Abbott netted the game’s first goal 43 seconds after Jon Jerome won the quarter’s opening faceoff.

Brett Bucktooth advanced the lead to two goals when he received a Perritt pass and whipped the shot past DeSantis. It appeared like SU would be able to continue to add goals while goalie Peter Coluccini, who finished the game with six saves, was stoning the Statesmen.

Not exactly.

Hobart made a run, scoring four goals which sandwiched an SU goal. The goals came in spurts, both sequences featuring one goal within the minute of the other. It sent the Orange to the locker room trailing for the fourth consecutive game.

Hobart and Syracuse traded a pair of goals each to begin the third quarter. Statesmen midfielder Sean Murphy, a 5-foot-6, 150-pound sophomore, scored his second goal of the game with 5:39 left in the third quarter to give Hobart a two-goal cushion. That cushion was admonished within the next three minutes, when Yevoli and Leveille scored goals to knot the game, 7-7, at the end of the period.

But Hobart wouldn’t be denied. They found the net twice in the fourth quarter, the second of which coming after Coluccini carried the ball to midfield and didn’t recover into position in time to stop Nick Currie’s shot.

There were opportunities in the second half for both teams, but Hobart took advantage of more of them.

‘We had open shots at the end, and maybe we didn’t make the right passes or make the right shots and I think that’s what hurt us,’ Bucktooth said.

But it was also Hobart, the small school which has been knocking on the Orange’s doorstep for 20 years in lacrosse, who earned the win. The defense was sharp. The game plan was refined. The goaltending was praiseworthy.

‘You play a team 20 years in a row, maybe it’s the law of averages you gotta get one of them,’ Hobart head coach Matt Kerwick said. ‘But that wasn’t the case tonight. We played very hard from start to finish and that’s the kind of effort you have to have against a team like Syracuse.’

It’s that Syracuse team which finds itself 1-4 for the first time since 1975. It’s the first four-game losing streak since 1981. And the games don’t become any easier.

‘We have to do some soul-searching,’ Desko said. ‘Now more than ever, it’s time to stick together.’

Published on March 28, 2006 at 12:00 pm