John Desko knows someone on the Syracuse men’s lacrosse team will replace Danny Brennan in the faceoff circle, someone will take draws now that Brennan graduated and took his nation-leading 66.7 percent win rate with him.

Desko has plenty of options: upperclassmen, underclassmen, newcomer freshmen. He just doesn’t know who it will be.

‘There’s a bunch,’ Desko said Monday, as the Orange kicked off fall practice. ‘There’ll be a lot of competition.’

Just a little more than three months ago, Syracuse paraded around Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass., hoisting the national championship trophy and savoring a season of redemption. They had answered all the questions following 2007’s 5-8 disaster. They had quieted all the critics.

And now they face a new batch of questions – Can they repeat? Who replaces Tewaaraton Trophy-winning attack Mike Leveille? – but such is the burden of being a lacrosse powerhouse.

The team has time to prepare itself for the spring season, to find answers to the fresh questions. The Orange can experiment through this month of fall practice, with a three-team scrimmage against Bucknell and SUNY-Stony Brook.

‘We can’t be satisfied, that’s the biggest thing,’ said midfielder Pat Perritt. ‘I mean, last year, we obviously weren’t satisfied, because of everything that happened. And we knew we needed to make a statement and prove some things to people. And I think we want to prove something new to people, that we can win it and come back and have a great season and hopefully win it again.’

Syracuse has won a NCAA-record 10 national championships, but hasn’t won back-to-back national titles since it won three straight from 1988 to 1990. One of the keys to repeating this spring will be finding an effective man in the faceoff ‘X.’ Few positions on the field are as critical as the faceoff man. Few play the position as well as Brennan did last year. He also led Syracuse in ground balls scooped.

Desko listed the names of those who might step in: senior Jake Moulton, sophomores Tim Harder and Tim Desko, and freshmen Zach Badalucco and Tyler Granelli.

Desko also threw in senior midfielder Matt Abbott, the jack-of-all-trades who was second on the team in ground balls last year.

‘Can’t forget about Matt,’ John Desko said. ‘He’s a nice option, because Matt does everything anyway. If he takes faceoffs and you lose them, you’ve got one of your best defensive players on the field.

Galloway, Hardy recovering

Dan Hardy ran at the front of the pack Monday as the team raced around Wohl Field. He led stretches and passed the ball back and forth in drills afterwards. But Desko said the senior midfielder won’t be available for much of fall practice, as he comes back from offseason ankle surgery.

While Hardy practiced behind him, Desko spoke of the midfield rotation as if he wasn’t even there.

‘Danny Hardy’s not out there right now,’ Desko said, ‘so we’re going to be figuring out who we’re going to be working with this fall.’

Starting goaltender John Galloway is also on the mend, nursing a leg infection. Desko said he expects the sophomore back within the next two weeks.

Until then, Al Cavalieri is the starter. Pete Coluccini – who started in net in 2005 and 2006 but lost the job to Galloway last spring – transferred to Ohio State last month.

ramccull@syr.edu

Published on September 8, 2008 at 12:00 pm