Every practice, Kenny Nims and Stephen Keogh try to get creative. The duo tries a couple fancy passing-scoring combinations that one day they could whip out in a game.

The Syracuse attack combo got that chance in SU’s 15-10 win over Cornell Tuesday night. Nims ran right and made a convincing fake-shot move at the goal. But the ball wound up in Keogh’s stick as he moved left and drove the ball into the net past Big Red goalkeeper Jake Myers to put Syracuse (8-2) up by four with 7:45 remaining in the fourth quarter.

It was a play representative of the entire game.

Keogh scored three goals in the No. 5 Orange’s win over No. 3 Cornell (7-2) at the Carrier Dome in front of 4,178 fans. Each of Keogh’s goals came off a Nims assist. The duo combined to score five of SU’s 15 goals and helped the team rebound from its disappointing 12-8 loss to Princeton in the Big City Classic Saturday.

Nims and Keogh’s connection is no secret. Nims fed Keogh the ball three times in Syracuse’s season-opener to Providence, a 22-3 victory. It happens in almost every game. And Tuesday night was no different.

‘Kenny has great vision. He’s such a threat to the cage,’ Keogh, a sophomore attack said. ‘I just got to get open when he gets the ball because it’s going to keep happening.’

Nims extended his point scoring streak to 26 consecutive games Tuesday. Three of his four assists were to Keogh, who leads Syracuse with 31 goals.

In the third quarter, Nims found Keogh alone on the crease. He faked three times before shooting the ball past Myers, a former SU goalie before he transferred to Cornell in 2007.

Nims has no problem being a feeder first. He was unaware of his point-scoring streak until the media informed him two weeks ago. He used to dish the ball out to his cousin and fellow SU player Greg Niewieroski at Watertown (N.Y.) High School, when Nims drew the double team.

But just because Nims seems comfortable finding Keogh doesn’t mean he can’t find the goal himself. He scored two goals Tuesday and sits at 21 this season.

‘I guess because we’ve been playing together for two years now, so the chemistry is quite good between me and him,’ Keogh said. ‘We just have to keep working in practice. We’d like to think this can lead us into the postseason. He can keep feeding me the ball, and I just have to keep finding the back of the net.’

After being relatively quiet in the Orange’s loss to Princeton Saturday, Keogh said Tuesday he didn’t know what happened. He just got ‘shut down.’ So did Nims, who only registered two points in the contest.

Keogh was silent again for almost the entire first half against the Big Red. Then, with 35 seconds remaining in the second quarter, Nims found Keogh for the first time. The connection sparked both players.

‘He’s a really good player,’ Keogh said of Nims. ‘You can maybe shut him off for a quarter or two, but you can’t keep doing it he’s going to get open.’

Keogh’s three goals was tied for the team-high, along with junior Chris Daniello. Keogh’s three points and Nims’ six fueled a Syracuse upset over the No. 3 team in the nation.

‘It really means a lot to come out here and get a big win against Cornell, one of our rivals,’ Nims said. ‘I’m really proud of our offense today and how we rebounded.

Syracuse head coach John Desko called Kenny Nims ‘the quarterback’ of Syracuse’s offense. But it doesn’t hurt for Nims to have the help from Keogh.

‘He did a nice job. Teams normally focus in on him a lot,’ Nims said. ‘So sometimes other players may get frustrated about that, but Keogh works twice as hard to try to get open. He found the seams nice today, and he was just there when I drove to the cage.’

On the field, the pair put in plenty of work, continuing the search for more creative ways to pass to one another and to find ways to keep opponents from shutting either one of them down. Off the field Nims and Keogh are good friends, but rarely talk about their scoring connection. Perhaps not to jinx it.

‘What we have off the field we have on the field,’ Keogh said. ‘And that’s good chemistry.’

mkgalant@syr.edu

Published on April 7, 2009 at 12:00 pm