BALTIMORE – Dan Hardy heard the Loyola fans hurling expletives at him. Every time he touched the ball, he had a string of hecklers in his ear, hurling insults from all directions

They were the first ones he looked at when he drilled the game – winning shot – an absolute bullet from 12 yards out on the right side of the cage, with just over a minute to play. And even though he was mugged by his teammates in celebration, he kept his eyes fixed on the stands.

‘I love to hear what they have to say,’ Hardy said of the fans’ chant. ‘I actually could hear these guys a little more, but they were only doing it because we were coming back to win the game.’

Hardy responded to the pressure after Syracuse head coach John Desko made him a key cog in the Orange’s late five-goal comeback effort, scoring three goals in the fourth quarter to propel the Orange to a 14-13 victory. After seeing a potential mismatch, the coach bumped Hardy up to attack, opening up the offense while allowing Syracuse to cap the improbable swing in less than nine minutes.

‘Physically, he creates matchup problems,’ Desko said. ‘We have some depth in the midfield department, so we were able to swing him down, let him push the corner, create some slides, give them some different matchup problems.’

Before the move, the Orange offense had fallen stagnant. After a three-goal first period and a four-goal second, the team netted just one in the third, while the Greyhounds began to mount a six-goal swing that gave them the lead.

The Orange needed a change.

Hardy replaced starting attack Tim Desko down low and immediately made his mark. Using his 6-foot-4, 215-pound frame, the midfielder posted up an undersized Greyhound defense and bullied it around.

With just over six minutes left in the final period, Hardy scored the first goal in his three-goal surge, drilling a shot off a pass from Josh Amidon. Less than three minutes later, Hardy went at the net again, capping a breakaway engineered by midfielder Pat Perritt.

‘Just having me down at attack took a little pressure off Kenny (Nims) and it made the defense work a little more trying to find the right guy to stop,’ Hardy said.

As the goals came, the chants grew louder, as Hardy seemingly stoked the Loyola student section with each point he scored.

‘I think Dan kind of likes when the crowd taunts him a little bit,’ attack Stephen Keogh said. ‘It gives him some pressure to step up a little bit, and he had some huge goals for us.’

But after almost single-handedly bringing his team back to a tie, there was still more work for Hardy to do. Still that last shot to take.

Amidon found Hardy open just like he had before, but this time the game was on the line. Since possessions had been precious and few for the Orange all day, it would need the goal to avoid overtime.

Hardy had missed a similar shot earlier in the game. A one-timer from about 15 yards out in the same location flew over the cage and skidded out of play. But this time, fueled by the pressure, the hecklers and the moment, Hardy wound up and fired his signature blast that found the back of the net.

‘It honestly happened so fast I don’t even remember that much,’ Hardy said. ‘I just remember that my guy slid up, and Josh (Amidon) dumped it down to me and I was calling for it because I knew my guy was going to slide. Then once I got it, I just let it go.’

Although Desko said he didn’t hear the fans chanting at Hardy, he was glad it could serve as a motivating factor for his midfielder to net the game-winner.

Having coached Hardy for the last four years, Desko knows his player well, and making him mad often doesn’t work out well for the opposition.

‘He’s a competitor and if anything, Danny’s a pretty relaxed guy,’ Desko said. ‘But you’re better off not getting him upset.’

ctorr@syr.edu

Published on March 29, 2009 at 12:00 pm