‘Cuse got up early and tried to hang on, but ultimately lost in their second overtime game in four days.
It was a slow demise for the Syracuse Orange on Monday evening in the JMA Dome, where ‘Cuse dropped a hard-fought game to the Johns Hopkins Blue Jays, 14-13, in overtime to fall to 4-4 on the season.
Playing their second consecutive overtime game in a span of four days, ‘Cuse did not come out like a team on two days rest. They came out and took the game straight at Hopkins, who was playing on more than a week’s rest.
The Orange jumped out to a 6-1 lead less than 10 minutes into the game on the strength of a 7-0 start on draw controls and some really effective movement on offense.
But those factors turned against SU as Hopkins spent the rest of the game slowly chipping away at the Orange’s advantage. ‘Cuse was able to punch back a handful of times to keep them at bay for a long time, but eventually it was too much to contain.
Down 6-1, Hopkins went on a 4-0 scoring run that brought it down to a one-goal game with a little under 10 minutes to go in the half. ‘Cuse was able to stem their momentum with a little 2-1 run to take an 8-6 lead into the break.
They opened the scoring of the second half, too, to take a 9-6 lead, but back came Hopkins. They controlled the rest of the third quarter, going on a 3-1 run to make it 10-9 SU heading into the fourth.
The final frame was really all about trying to stop the damn from breaking. SU grabbed a two-goal lead, only to have Hopkins come back and tie it at 11. The Orange re-took the lead with a little over five minutes remaining, but JHU scored 34 seconds later. It wasn’t until there were 2:23 left in the game that the Blue Jays finally took their first lead of the contest.
That wasn’t the complete back-breaker for SU, who got the ball back on a Hopkins turnover with roughly 30 seconds left in the game. After successfully clearing, an Emma Muchnick goal on a free position with 12 seconds left tied the game and sent it to overtime.
But, emblematic of the general momentum of the bulk of the game, Hopkins won the overtime draw and scored on their opening possession to take the win and drop SU back to .500 on the year.
Any overtime loss is tough, but this one felt even more so given their great start and how long they were able to hold on for before being overtaken.
The bottom line is that right now we’re witnessing the growing pains of a young team in real time. At times in this game, the offense had great execution, effectively breaking down the Blue Jays’ zone with smart, quick movement. At times, they really struggled to attack the zone, leading to long possessions and a bunch of forced passes that led to turnovers.
The same was true everywhere. SU won the draws for the game, 16-15, but there was a lot of inconsistency there after winning the first seven and losing 9-15 the rest of the way.
The defense had nine caused turnovers, part of 16 in total for JHU, but their woman-to-woman also really struggled to stop Hopkins’ two stars, Ava Angello (6G) and Ashley Mackin (4G), who combined for 10 of their 14 tallies. Hopkins ran a pick-and-roll play from the top of the key all game long; at times the Orange managed it well, and at times not so much.
There were a lot of careless or silly mistakes in this game. One of the biggest was the penalties, as SU finished with seven cards. Although the defense did well fighting off a lot of the woman-down situations, that’s just too many woman-up chances to give to the other team. Six of the seven cards were committed by freshmen or redshirt freshmen, and a lot of them were over-zealous mistakes in the middle of the field.
There was also a lot of good production from the youngsters, which is encouraging if you’re in the market for a silver lining. Carolina Trinkaus (3G, 4DC), Alexa Vogelman (2G, 3DC), Mileena Cotter (2G, 1DC) and Annie Parker (1G, 1A) combined to score eight of the team’s 13 goals and grab eight of their 16 draw controls.
Meanwhile, Emma Ward (1G, 3A) led with four points and Emma Muchnick (2G) scored a pair including the one that sent it to OT. Joely Caramelli (1G, 7DC) had a goal and seven draw controls as she continues to cement her status as the primary draw taker.
Unfortunately, there was just too much inconsistency mixed with growing pains for the Orange to hang on all the way for a win in this one.
They’ll be back in action this weekend when they hit the road to face the Pittsburgh Panthers this Saturday, March 15 at 11 AM on ACC Network Extra.