Jeremy Thompson ripped off his helmet. Next came his gloves. Then, he tossed his black mouth guard to the ground. He stood on the sideline as the rest of the Syracuse men’s lacrosse team huddled in front of its net.

The disbelief was setting in.

On the other side of the field, Army’s Derek Sipperly was mobbed by teammates. Reserve goaltender Zach Palmieri hit him on the helmet, and attack Garret Thul embraced him. Sipperly, a sophomore midfielder, hopped up and down.

Upset complete. The celebration was on.

The two contrasting scenes summed up Syracuse’s double overtime upset-loss to Army, 9-8, in the first round of the NCAA tournament at the Carrier Dome on Sunday.

Sipperly dominated Thompson, Gavin Jenkinson and Tim Harder in the faceoff X, helping Army win 12-of-19 faceoff draws in the game. Sipperly’s performance led to extra possessions for the Black Knights. It led to long defensive battles for the Orange. It led to the Syracuse offense forcing things when it got a rare chance to score.

And it eventually led to those opposing reactions after the game.

‘My hats off to their faceoff guys,’ SU head coach John Desko said. ‘Their faceoff man and wings were exceptional. It didn’t seem like we could get a good possession and we asked our defense to play a lot of defense.’

On Sunday, the Orange won just 7-of-19 draws. In a decisive second half, Army won 6-of-8 faceoffs, climbing back from two goals down at the half to send the game into overtime.

As SU shuffled Thompson, Jenkinson and Harder into the X, Army stuck with Sipperly for all but two faceoffs. The Greenwich, N.Y., native didn’t care who he was up against. He used his quick hands to poke the ball out to his wings or take it himself, winning 11 of his 17 faceoff chances.

He also had the advantage of familiarity with SU’s three-headed faceoff monster coming into Sunday’s match up.

‘This week I had previous confidence coming into this game because I faced off against them earlier this season,’ Sipperly said. ‘I had confidence so I felt like I could win.’

It’s a confidence that certainly did not come from statistics. It did not come from a season of success. And it certainly did not come from the numbers Sipperly put up against Syracuse earlier this season.

Coming into the game, Army was ranked 57th out of 58 Division I teams in faceoff winning percentage. The Orange was ranked seventh. The Black Knights entered the contest with a 39 percent mark compared to the Orange’s 57 percent success rate at the X.

When the two teams played each other earlier this season on Feb. 28, SU won 15-of-23 faceoffs. Army won just eight of those 23 draws, and Sipperly found success just 1-of-4 times.

Based on those numbers, Desko felt like the X would be a place of success for his team on Sunday night — not the nightmare it soon became.

‘We frankly thought we would come out of the game winning faceoffs,’ Desko said. ‘They dominated faceoffs, which gave them all those possessions.’

Though Desko took comfort in watching film and seeing his team dominate the faceoffs, Army head coach Joe Alberici saw something much different. He did not see a stat line in his favor, but he did see glimmers of hope. He saw potential for Sipperly to get the Black Knight offense extra possessions from the X.

‘Looking at some film, Derek had some great success in that first game,’ Alberici said. ‘It didn’t really show up, but he was winning the draws. He just didn’t pick up the ball in that first game, but he was getting the draw. We just felt like he would be the guy that could get some work done for us in the middle.’

On this night, the contrasting perspectives on the X that the coaches had coming into the game were not the only things that were vastly different.

The Orange’s Harder sat through the postgame press conference, his eyes red and tearing up. Sipperly could not stop smiling. For him, it was quite simple. While the numbers went against him all season long, he continued to work.

He couldn’t ask for a better time to be rewarded.

‘I have worked on it all season long,’ Sipperly said. ‘We have had some success recently and last weekend against Navy we fared well in the faceoff X.

‘Today, it all finally paid off.’ 

 

restern@syr.edu