Monday Morning Quarterback: SU Men's Lacrosse

Twenty-seven times the Syracuse Orange and Princeton Tigers have met on the lacrosse field. Syracuse has always played a run and gun style, moving the ball quickly, while Princeton has normally played more controlled and methodical. But under two-year man Chris Bates the tigers have changed their stripes. Head Coach John Desko says, "I think they look more like us than what they used to look like, which is great to see. I think their kids are enjoying the change and adjusting well. That's a dangerous group out there and their going to win some lacrosse games and I think it's good for the game of lacrosse."

One player that's been great for Desko's team is senior attackman Tommy Palasek, who transferred to Syracuse after two years at rival Johns Hopkins. Palasek netted the game winner for the Cuse on Saturday. Desko says, "He seems to really be coming into his own right now dodging, feeding, riding, dodging with the ball feeding just really well rounded hurting the other team in a lot of different ways." Palasek says, "Our team the whole game we were riding them hard, they were successful at times with clears but sometimes you could see there was confusion. Our guys didn't let up at the midfield line fortunately I was just standing 10 yards from the cage, Timmy made a great pass through the middle of two defenseman and I just turned and shot it."

On the other end of the field freshman Bobby Wardwell made his first career start facing off against one of the best goalies in all of college lacrosse, Tyler Fiorito. Wardwell says, "Umm it was exciting, I was pretty rattled after they hit the first couple of pipes but the rest of the team kind of calmed me down and we all got back into it and defense played great today, offense played great today, Daddio did a great job on the face offs, getting those big faceoff wins for us before the forth quarter and going down getting those goals." Desko added, "I think to watch him play from the first quarter to the end of the game you could just see him grow and the confidence grow and I think it speaks for how mentally tough the kid is and what a competitor the kid is."