With nine and a half minutes remaining and Syracuse clinging to a one-goal lead over Army on Sunday, the Orange found itself in grave danger of starting 1-1 for the fourth straight year.

That was until Mike Leveille took over the game. The senior Syracuse attack scored two goals in 11 seconds to give the Orange a three-goal lead in the third quarter that proved enough to outlast Army 8-7 in the Carrier Dome.

After a rough first half, in which SU recorded only two goals, Leveille sparked the attack by netting four of Syracuse’s six second-half goals and helped the Orange win its crucial second game of the year.

‘Leveille was huge,’ SU attack Greg Niewieroski said. ‘It was almost like he wasn’t going to let our team lose. He put everyone on his back, and he wanted the ball to go to the rack, he wanted the feed, and he did what he does best. He’s a great player.’

Facing Army goalie Adam Fullerton, who had frustrated the Orange attack all day by recording 12 first-half saves and 13 total, Leveille found room coming around the left side of the goal and skipped a shot between Fullerton’s legs at the 9:28 mark in the third quarter.

Off the faceoff following Leveille’s goal, freshman midfielder Jovan Miller was able to catch a pass and skirt by his defender and find space on the left side of the goal. As he streaked toward the goal, he had a good look for a shot.

But after hearing the hype about Fullerton all week and watching his dominating first-half performance, Miller admitted he was nervous to pull the trigger on the shot. Instead, he started looking for Leveille.

‘I figured why not let Mike Leveille take the shot, he’s an All-American,’ Miller said.

Miller passed across the goal to Leveille, who was waiting at the backdoor for an easy goal. It was goal No. 8, and it gave SU its largest lead of the game.

‘That really helped us, and it really helped the crowd get into it and pick our tempo up a little bit and our emotions up a little bit,’ Syracuse head coach John Desko said of the goal. ‘I think we got a lot of confidence out of it.’

Desko said it was Leveille’s ability to beat his defender that helped Syracuse’s second-half scoring effort. After Army was able to play straight up in the first half, not favoring any single attack, Leveille’s play in the second half threw the Black Knight’s defense off kilter, Desko said.

‘It makes the defense think they are going to have to slide or double-team to help out,’ Desko said. ‘So that creates just a little bit of hesitation on their part.’

That hesitation opened the door for a six-goal second half. Syracuse seemed to pick up momentum as the half rolled on, while Fullerton and the Army defense seemed more frazzled as the game came to a close.

Leveille, one of SU’s three captains who tied with midfielder Dan Hardy for the team lead with 22 goals last season, played a relatively small role with just two goals in Syracuse’s season-opening 21-6 drubbing of Villanova. But when it mattered, Leveille provided a game-changing performance.

‘I think he’s always been there and done the right things and said the right things,’ Desko said. ‘He understands the offenses very well and the rides, you’ve got a little bit of a quarterback out there with him out there.’

For Leveille after the game, it was all about the team ending its three-year streak of 1-1 starts, and gaining momentum going into No. 3 Virginia next week.

‘It’s huge,’ Leveille said of the game. ‘It’s hard when you dig yourself a hole at the beginning of the year because the pressure starts building, and you feel like every game you go out and you have to win.’

kbaustin@syr.edu

Published on February 24, 2008 at 12:00 pm