Syracuse, N.Y. – It started when long stick midfielder Landon Clary delivered a hit that dislodged the ball from a Duke stick and then charged upfield with the ball.
Syracuse, at that point, owned a slender 11-10 advantage over the Blue Devils with 9 minutes, 23 seconds left in the Carrier Dome game between ACC lacrosse rivals.
Clary crossed midfield and soon spied Tucker Dordevic near the right crease. He flung a pass that sailed a bit high. Dordevic speared it, pirouetted and flicked a one-handed shot between his legs.
The ball beat Duke goalie Mike Adler and triggered pandemonium on the Syracuse sideline, so spectacular was Dordevic’s execution.
“I was kind of pressing out a little bit. Landon is faster than anyone on the field and he sprinted out,” Dordevic said later, after the Orange secured a 14-10 win over the No. 10 Blue Devils to even its record at 4-4. “It was a little outside but I thought it was a pretty good pass. As I was reaching out for it, I realized I was in front of the goal. I kind of just shot it, underhand, between my legs. I was hoping it would go in so I wouldn’t get in trouble.”
Trouble?
Would Dordevic, SU’s leading goal-scorer, really find himself in “trouble” if that shot failed to find net? He plays for Gary Gait, whose sorcerer skills with a stick all those years ago would seem to encourage such spontaneous innovation.
“Well, he had 21 other shots. What’s a one-hander? That’s a higher percentage shot for him,” Gait said, when asked if any punishment, real or imagined, would have surfaced after a miss from that acrobatic play. And yes, Dordevic, who finished with five goals and two assists, took a fairly astonishing 22 shots against Duke Saturday.
Gait described the goal that will dominate Saturday’s lacrosse highlights as “reactionary.”
“That’s what we need to do in that situation,” Gait said. “If it was a perfect pass, I’m sure he would have caught it and buried it. But the pass was a little off, he reacted and it allowed him to make that play. The great thing was it wasn’t telegraphed, it wasn’t set up. It was reaction and that comes from practicing. I’m sure he didn’t think about it at all before he did it.”
Dordevic’s fourth quarter theatrics were not limited to that one shot, as pivotal as it was in Saturday’s game.
He scored twice and assisted on two other goals in SU’s 4-1 fourth quarter scoring advantage. Duke, at various times in that quarter, assigned a close defender, a long stick midfielder or a short stick midfielder to Dordevic.
Both times he drew the short stick, he inverted and found cutting teammates who caught passes in front of the cage and buried the ball. Brendan Curry scored off Dordevic’s first assist; Owen Seebold off his second.
“I think it was kind of just mixing up matchups for them and sliding and not knowing who they were covering. Just putting someone out there,” Dordevic said of the defensive switches. “I don’t think it was (intentional).”
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