Syracuse closed both the non-conference portion of their schedule and the 2014 calendar year with a choppy 61-44 victory over Cornell Wednesday night at the Carrier Dome.
Randy Staats went on a personal 4-0 run in the second half that turned a 8-6 deficit into a 12-6 lead, and Syracuse was never seriously challenged the rest of the contest.
As always, Syracuse will need to pay close attention to the opposing team’s faceoff specialist. In this case, it will be Cornell’s Doug Tesoriero, who has won 53 percent of his faceoffs this season, though he did struggle against Harvard.
The story of the game was obviously Trevor Cooney, who buried seven 3-pointers en route to a career-high 27 points. He did it on a dazzling display of 3s off the dribble, off screens and in transition.
The adrenaline of opening night showed for both Syracuse and Cornell at the Carrier Dome on Friday night. The Big Red harnessed theirs early while the Orange seemed to have a little too much, leading to the underdog visitors leading by as many as 14 points in the first half.
Halfway through February last season, it looked like Cornell had a dark-horse shot at the Ivy title after sweeping the southern New England road trip at Yale and Brown to improve to 5-3 in league play.
Luke Cometti finally got on track after a slow start to his senior season, scoring four goals. Goalkeeper Dominic Lamolinara stepped up big late in the game, making some huge saves. He finished the day giving up 12 goals but he also made 12 saves.