Syracuse Lacrosse: Hofstra, Le Moyne Feel Our Exhibitiony Pain

The Syracuse Orange lacrosse team might not be expected to win as many games this year as usual but they proved they can win twice in one day on Sunday when they beat Hofstra 7-5 and Le Moyne 11-5 in back-to-back scrimmages.

Of the 18 total goals on the day for Syracuse, 12 came from the midfield, arguably the team's biggest enigma heading into the season. After the games, SU head coach John Desko said the team is actually ahead of where it was last season in terms of knowing who the midfielders will be and what lines they will play on.

One of the big questions on the day was how goalie Matt Lerman would look in his first full-time action as the starting goalie. After a shaky start, the prognosis was...pretty good.

"I got a little shelled in there against Hofstra right away. I got the first, and that's the most important thing to me," Lerman said. "And as we say in practice, ‘The pipe's not a goal.'"

"I was happy with Matt," SU head coach John Desko said. "I thought he did a good job, and (it's) tough on him going out there for the very first time as a starting goaltender, but I thought we got a good performance out of Matt."

If you're looking for a starting lineup, it seems to stack up like this (roughly-speaking):

Midfield: JoJo Marasco, Bobby Eilers Hakeem Lecky

Attack: Derek Maltz, Tim Desko, Tommy Palasek

Defense: Brian Megill, Dave Hamlin, Kyle Carey, Matt Lerman (G)

As for Lecky, he's a guy to keep an eye on. The redshirt freshman had an itchy trigger-finger during the first scrimmage, but Coach Desko is excited to see what kind of star he's going to blossom into.

"The more he plays, the more comfortable he's going to get in the offense in game situations and the better decisions he'll make," Desko said. "I thought he showed at times that he's hard to cover."

"It was a good feeling to get one put in the back of the net," Lecky said. "But hopefully, there'll be a lot more to come."

Meanwhile, if there's an area that's cause for the concern, it's the same one that plagued the Orange all of last season...face-offs. SU's primary face-off specalist Ricky Buhr is injured and in his stead the Orange lost the face-off battle against Le Moyne 10-4. The man-up unit didn't light the world on fire either. But, of course, it's still way early.

The Orange will take on fellow top ten team Maryland in their final exhibition tune-up next Sunday and open the regular season February 19th against Albany.