Orange owes a lot to junior goalie

By Donna Ditota
The Post-Standard

After it was decided, after Syracuse had withstood a furious Navy assault to win its ninth NCAA lacrosse championship, Jay Pfeifer waded through the discarded sticks and gloves and helmets and searched for Roy Simmons III.

When he found him, amid all the debris of victory, Pfeifer wrapped the big man in a bear hug. He wanted to thank the Orange assistant for devising a defensive game plan that halted Johns Hopkins on Saturday and then discouraged Navy two days later.

But on Monday, Simmons and the rest of the Orange should have been thanking their junior goalie.

Pfeifer made 15 saves, a few of them doorstep denials, on college lacrosse's biggest stage, helping SU to a 14-13 victory over the Midshipmen before a record NCAA championship crowd of 43,898. The win further cemented the reputation of SU coach John Desko, who in his six seasons as head coach has taken his teams to five national championship games and won three of them.

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