For Syracuse, another season begins now.

Sure, the No. 1 Orange had No. 17 Colgate on its revenge list since last season. Losing to the Raiders one year ago Sunday was disappointing, but ultimately winning the national championship washed it all away.

Syracuse (12-2) finally crossed Colgate (9-6) off its checklist Saturday with a 13-7 victory. But the Orange players quickly put the win it had been coveting against the Raiders behind them. Attack Kenny Nims called it ‘just another game.’

‘It feels nice to get a win on senior day against these guys,’ Nims said. ‘We just wanted to come out all week in practice and be sharp and be on the right foot going into the playoffs.’

Syracuse will wait until around 9 p.m. Sunday to find out who it will play next weekend in the first round of the NCAA tournament, then begin the scouting process and start practicing. After Saturday’s game, SU head coach John Desko predicted SU would play Siena or Massachusetts.

With the tournament a week away, Syracuse needs to get back to the basics – and even back in shape, Nims said, in order to make a run in the playoffs.

Midfielder Dan Hardy agreed Syracuse had a successful regular season and that a win to finish it off was nice. But now a new season starts. The 14 games the Orange played from February to until now were just warm-ups.

‘It was obviously a pretty good regular season for us,’ said Hardy, who scored two goals against Colgate. ‘And now we are kind of at the point now where we want to move on and make a run in the playoffs and make a run for the national championship again.’

Hardy said this game built confidence for SU going into the playoffs. The positive signs were everywhere: Cody Jamieson scored his first career goal in the third quarter. Tim Desko tied for a game-high with two goals. The defense held Raiders star Brandon Corp to just one goal. Eleven players scored for Syracuse – a statistic Hardy attributed to Nims’ ball distribution.

Everything seems to be clicking just at the right time.

For a team that all season refused to comment on games to come and stayed focused on the present, the players and Desko couldn’t help but look ahead. The players brushed off the win over Colgate and immediately wanted to start preparing for the playoffs, Desko started his predictions.

Desko recognized the value of defeating Colgate for the first time since 2006, as he now owns a 3-2 record over the Raiders. He also acknowledged the momentum could be key for his team, as it drives to win its second straight national title.

He expects the task to be difficult. No team has won back-to-back national titles since Bill Tierney’s Princeton team won three-straight from 1996-98.

For Syracuse to be the first in over a decade to repeat, it will have to do what Desko has been preaching all year: ‘play a full 60 minutes of lacrosse.’

Nims recited his coach’s words Saturday, saying slow first quarters would not be acceptable come the playoffs, and that the quick four-goal lead Syracuse took in the first quarter against the Raiders showed a newfound resilience.

Syracuse’s new season has officially begun. The team is already preparing for it. And a win over Colgate was the perfect way to end the old one.

‘It was a big game for both teams given the recent history and Colgate’s need for a win today,’ Desko said. ‘It definitely had a playoff atmosphere to it and we wanted to win the game after losing to them and we wanted to play well going into the playoffs.’

mkgalant@syr.edu

Published on May 1, 2009 at 12:00 pm