MAY MADNESS HISTORY
Glory Days
Stories of NCAA tournament lore, from the mouths of champions
1989 Gary Gait:
Syracuse 13, Johns Hopkins 12 Byrd Stadium, College Park, Md.
When Johns Hopkins met Syracuse at
Byrd Stadium to decide the NCAA title in 1989, the air was thick with anticipation. One of the sport’s fi erce rivalries was in full bloom, and a boisterous crowd of 23,893 — the largest ever to attend a lacrosse game at the time — was eager to see the next chapter unfold. An emerging sports network, ESPN, televised the event. The Orange had come of age under coach
Roy Simmons Jr. by beating the Blue Jays on Memorial Day in 1983. Hopkins returned the favor in the next two title games and won it all again in 1987 with a young star named Dave Pietramala, who would become the most celebrated defenseman in the game. In 1988, a freshman and budding
superstar named Gary Gait had helped Syracuse win its second NCAA championship. In 1989, they clashed on center stage.
52 LACROSSE MAGAZINE May 2014>>
I was a kid from western Canada, clueless about the history of the game. I didn’t really understand anything about the culture here. The year before that, I thought the crowd was big and loud at Rutgers. But the crowd in College Park was another level. We had a ton of great athletes who stepped up to win lots of one-goal games that year. We were an up-and-down team that wanted to take a hundred shots and outscore the other team. I don’t think anybody really won the matchup between me and [Pietramala]. But he got me when I had the ball at the end, and the ball went back to them. Matt [Palumb] was always a gamer for us. He sure was that day when it counted.
Johns Hopkins pulled within 13-12. Then, in a wild sequence, Pietramala made a great play off the wing to control the faceoff, only to watch the Blue Jays lose possession. The Orange called timeout with 48 seconds left. Most in the roaring crowd at Byrd wanted to see one more Gait-Pietramala confrontation. That’s what they got.
Dave Pietramala:
They were freewheeling and free-spirited. We were the disciplined team that was all about structure. They were more talented than us. I remember going into the huddle after they called timeout. I looked at [coach] Don Zimmerman and said, “I want to cover the ball.” And he just said, “OK.” Gait tried to take me right-handed, and then he rolled back. I went over his head and knocked the ball to the ground.
In our huddle after we got the ball back, we called a play that was called “Nine O’Clock.” Matt Panetta got the ball to Jeff Ihm behind the goal and he found John Dressel after he’d made a great cut. We got the shot we wanted, but it hit Palumb and that was it. I walked off the fi eld feeling distraught we lost, but I had nothing else left to give. I didn’t realize right away it was a turning point for our sport, but that game had everything. It was on TV. There was a record crowd and two powerhouse programs. The Gaits would become institutions in the game. There were seven fi rst-team All- Americans on the fi eld. There was drama. It went down to the wire. What more could you want?” — as told to Gary Lambrecht
A Publication of US Lacrosse
©SYRACUSE (1989)
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