Men's Lacrosse Meets the Media

Coach Desko Media Day Quotes
Player Quotes

SYRACUSE, N.Y. - The 2007 Orange men's lacrosse team held its annual Media Day on Sunday, Jan. 21 at the Carrier Dome. SU head coach John Desko fielded questions from the local media during a news conference. Orange players also participated in interviews and posed for photos.

Desko addressed a number of topics, including how much farther along he believes this year's team is than last year's.

“I think you see the swagger more in game situations than you do in practice. But I think already we are ahead of where we were last year just because of all the players coming back," Desko said. "Last year we were doing an awful lot of teaching in the spring instead of the fall because we had new players out there, injuries, you’re teaching what to do in games and how to adjust. I do think we are ahead of where we were last year at this time.”

He also addressed the importance of getting off to a good start with such a difficult schedule.

“You find out where you are and what you have to work on because you are seeing some very talented lacrosse teams who have been in playoff situations and these are good teams," Desko said. Early in the year, if you can get a couple of wins under your belt against teams like this, it’s huge when being considered for playoffs. They look at schedules and RPI and wins and losses, and to play these kinds of teams early is good but to get wins against them also helps at the end of the year.”

“I think it was a really hard start last year and it would have been really easy for our team to pack it in and give up, but I think it showed a lot about our team and our leaders and we fought back and we know we don’t want a big hole like that again this year,” agreed junior co-captain Mike Leveille.

Desko enters his ninth season three wins short of 100. He is 97-30 in his first eight seasons with three national championships to his credit.

The Orange return three All-Americans in Leveille, sophomore middie Pat Perritt and senior defenseman Steve Panarelli. In addition, graduate student middie Greg Rommel, junior defenseman Kyle Guadagnolo, sophomore attackman Dan Hardy and junior middie Steve Brooks were selected as preseason All-Americans by Inside Lacrosse. SU’s seven selections was tied for the most of any team in the country. Leveille is SU's leading returning scorer. He tallied 52 points in 2006.

Syracuse begins its regular season on Sunday, Feb. 18 against Hobart at the Carrier Dome. Face-off is 1:00 p.m.

Syracuse University Athletics

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