Posted on the door to the Syracuse locker room at Manley Field House this week is a sign.

It reads: “21-7” — the final score of Syracuse’s meeting with Duke on March 23. A reminder of the most embarrassing loss in recent program memory and the point at which the Orange hit rock bottom before turning its season around.

After a three-game skid to start Atlantic Coast Conference play put Syracuse’s season in danger, the Orange has won five straight games, including two in conference play.

Each victory has seemingly held more weight than the previous one, and that trend will hold true if the No. 4 Orange (9-3, 2-3 ACC) knocks off No. 2 Duke (12-2, 4-1) in the ACC tournament semifinals. More so, a win would avenge both that 14-goal loss and a defeat in the 2013 national championship game. Third-seeded Syracuse takes on the No. 2 seed Blue Devils on Friday at 5 p.m. at PPL Park in Chester, Pa.

Playoff hopes were bleak when SU fell behind 0-3 in conference play, but a midseason turnaround has pitted the Orange against a team with which it’s becoming quite familiar.

The outcome of the four-team ACC tournament may not have the most substantial effect on SU’s NCAA tournament seeding, thus lessening the weekend’s significance.

Still, SU head coach John Desko feels there is much at stake.

“This is more for pride,” he said. “This is part of being in probably the best conference in men’s lacrosse at the Division I level.

“This is a team that’s already beat us. You prefer to play a team that’s beaten you. I think it gives us some added incentive going in.”

The Orange’s first two failed attempts at its first-ever ACC win — a five-goal loss at Virginia and an eight-goal loss at home to Maryland — weren’t pretty, but the matchup at Duke was the epitome of ugliness.

SU jumped out to an early 2-1 lead, but the first five minutes of the game couldn’t have been much more misleading.

It didn’t take long for Duke faceoff specialist Brendan Fowler to reenact last year’s NCAA title game, in which he won 16 draws in a stretch of 18 attempts to help erase an early five-goal Syracuse lead.

This time around, Fowler captured 8-of-11 faceoffs in the first quarter and gave the lethal Blue Devils attack ample possessions to bury 10 unanswered goals — and with them, the Orange.

“We lost my sophomore year to them in the first round of the playoffs and obviously, last year was a heartbreaker,” senior defender Matt Harris said. “This year was probably the worst loss of my career in any single sport.”

And the same Fowler and Co. will be waiting for Syracuse on Friday.

But the Orange they will see is a much more confident group than the one they last saw.

Resurgent faceoff specialist Chris Daddio has won 58 percent during SU’s five-game winning streak after SU entered it with a 36.9 percent clip.

But the self-demanding senior would be the first to credit the rest of the team. The defense hasn’t allowed more than 10 goals in a game since the Duke loss. The offense, even with its lack of opportunities early on, has climbed into the nation’s top 10 in goals per game.

And Syracuse cleared at a 95.4 percent rate in its two wins over Cornell and North Carolina — which clinched the ACC tournament berth for SU — earlier this month.

Another showdown with Duke couldn’t come at a more opportune time for the Orange.

“We’ve been on this run lately,” Daddio said. “Obviously, we have a bad taste in our mouth, but that just motivates us even more.”

Maybe Daddio, individually, has the most to prove on Friday as he lines up against Fowler once again.

But it’s been a complete-team turnaround to this point, and it’ll take a complete-team performance to finally beat Duke and relieve the bits of humiliation that still linger from that 21-7 loss.

Said Harris: “It’s exciting for us to get another crack at them.”

Published on April 24, 2014 at 1:35 am

Contact Phil: pmdabbra@syr.edu | @PhilDAbb