May 26, 2008

by Paul Ohanian, Lacrosse Magazine Online Staff

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. - Winning national championships usually takes more than just having the best players. It requires teamwork, commitment and sacrifice. It requires players of divergent backgrounds and abilities unselfishly pooling their talents in the pursuit of a common goal.

No doubt, a team needs its best players playing at their best. But it also needs contributions - including surprising ones - from role players.

Syracuse received just that kind of an unexpected bonus from one of its marquee role players in Sunday's 13-10 NCAA Division I men's lacrosse championship game win over Johns Hopkins.

Most of the time, senior midfielder Danny Brennan has one job. Win possession of the ball for his team on the faceoff, then run off the field. His more high-profile teammates are left to score the goals and grab the headlines.

"I'm pretty much the definition of a FOGO," admits Brennan, with a smile. "I win it and I come straight off. If I lose it, I try to hook a ride with their pole and come off that way."

By his own admission, Brennan didn't enjoy a dominating performance at the 'X' in Sunday's game, winning 13 of 26 draws. That was well below his season average of 67.9 percent - which led the nation. But what he sacrificed in faceoff percentage, he added in shooting percentage.

In his 59th and final collegiate game, on his only shot of the game, Brennan scored the first goal of his career.

With Hopkins having just scored to increase its lead to 3-1, Brennan pushed the ensuing faceoff past Stephen Peyser, scooped the ball while running toward the Hopkins goal, and fired a left-handed 10-yarder past goalie Michael Gvozden into the lower far corner.

With 28.7 seconds left in the first quarter of the national championship game, for the first time ever, the senior heard the roar of the crowd reacting to a goal that he had scored.

"In that situation, I'm taught to go until somebody slides to me," Brennan explained. "Today, nobody slid to me. So I just pulled it as hard as I could. I figured if it went wide, we would have back-up, and if it went in, then good for me."

All of a sudden, he was in unfamiliar territory.

"I got knocked down on the play, and when I got up I didn't know what to do," said Brennan, known affectionately to his teammates as Panther. "I just put my arms up and thought 'What do I do now?'"

Coming at a pivotal point in the game, the goal helped spark a 7-2 Orange run that tilted the game in their favor.

"That was a big goal for us at the time," said coach John Desko. "For Danny to get one today is just a wonderful feeling and adds something to the championship."

It's not that Brennan isn't appreciated for the things that he normally does.

As one of the nation's premier faceoff specialists, he was recognized with honorable mention All-American honors, announced Saturday. He was also one of four Syracuse players selected by the media to the 2008 NCAA All-Tournament team.

"I'm the kind of player that doesn't look for the recognition," Brennan said. "I just get the ball to guys that can score better than I can."

His teammates know that his contributions are invaluable, however.

"This game is all about possessions and controlling the ball," said attackman Mike Leveille, "and he gives that to us better than anybody else in the country. Our success in large part is due to him getting us those balls."

"He's been a big reason why we've won some of the games that we've won," said Desko. "For him to get a goal today on top of winning a national championship is just tremendous. It's really the icing on the cake."

Notes

Brennan was joined on the 10-person all-tournament team by teammates Dan Hardy, Sid Smith and Leveille, who was also named as the Most Outstanding Player...Paul Rabil, Kevin Huntley, Michael Evans and Michael Gvodsen were selected from Johns Hopkins...Monday's attendance of 48,970 set a new championship game record, surpassing last year's 48,302 in Baltimore...The championship weekend at Gillette Stadium also set a new three-day attendance record with 145,828, besting last year's total by 251...Syracuse finished with a 46-38 edge in total shots and was not outshot in any game in 2008...Gvozden's 20 saves were the most in a championship game since Brian Dougherty's 23 saves for Maryland against Syracuse in 1995.