No member of the Syracuse team could have been happier about Friday’s victory in the ACC lacrosse semifinals than Nate Solomon.
The freshman, who played at Centennial High School in Alpharetta, scored two goals to help the Orange roll to a 10-7 victory against North Carolina and earn a spot in the conference championship game against Duke on Sunday at Kennesaw State.
The No. 13 Blue Devils stunned No. 4 Notre Dame by coming back from a four-goal deficit in the second half to score a 10-9 overtime victory.
Solomon, a three-time high school All-America, had three goals and two assists during the regular season. Solomon, the only Georgian on the roster, was a definitely a force on Friday night.
“It was great to see the young guy come out and play well in his hometown,” Syracuse coach John Desko said.
Solomon scored the third goal, an unassisted score with 50 seconds left in the first quarter, in a 3-0 Syracuse run that allowed the Orange to take a lead it would never relinquish. He scored again to open the fourth quarter, finding the net after a pass from Paolo Ciferri with 12:14 to give the Orange a 9-4 lead.
“It felt like a high school game kinda,” Solomon said. “It’s a big stage, but you’ve got to play confident.”
Solomon’s parents are from Syracuse, which made it an attractive place for him to go to school, even though lived his whole life in Alpharetta.
No. 8 Syracuse (9-4) also got two goals from Derek DeJoe and Jordan Evans, as two as one goal and three assists from Nick Mariano and one goal and two assists from Sergio Salcido. The Orange got single goals from Dylan Donahue and Tim Barber.
No. 11 North Carolina (8-6) was led by Steve Pontrello and Brian Cannon with three goals each, with Patrick Kelly scoring once. Pontrello also had two assists.
Syracuse jumped to a 3-0 lead and had 6-1 lead with 5:28.
“The opportunities were there, if we could have broken in,” North Carolina coach Joe Breschi said. “When you get shut out in two quarters it’s hard to win the game.”
Syracuse had beaten the Tar Heels 13-7 on April 16 at the Carrier Dome, a game that saw the Orange take an 8-2 lead at half and turn back a fourth-period surge.
“It was very similar,” Breschi said. “Credit to them for getting the stops in the first quarter. We were right there and made a run. The third quarter could have gone either way.”
Duke won the second semifinal just 40 seconds into the extra period. Chad Cohan worked the ball to Myles Jones, who passed it to Justin Guterding, who fired a shot over his left shoulder past goalkeeper Shane Doss for the winner. It was Guterding’s second goal of the game.
The Blue Devils trailed 8-4 with 4:01 left in the third quarter, but rallied to tie the game at 9-9 on a goal by Jones with 7:37 left.
Duke (10-6) got three goals and two assists from Chad Cohan, two goals from Deemer Class and a goal and three assists from Case Matheis.
Notre Dame (9-7) got three goals each from Sergio Perkovic and Ryder Garnsey, two goals from Mikey Wynne and a goal and two assists from Matt Kavanagh.
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