Syracuse women’s lacrosse: Orange hold off furious charge to beat Virginia, 13-12, as Ward reaches 300

It was a near fourth quarter collapse, but ‘Cuse once again made just enough plays to emerge with another close victory.

This Syracuse Orange team loves the drama. They just can’t get enough of it.

On a Senior Day Saturday afternoon in the JMA Dome, the Orange topped the Virginia Cavaliers by a final score of 13-12 to improve to 8-4 and 4-2 in the ACC on the season.

It was a sixth time in the last seven ‘Cuse games that the final margin was two or fewer. Five of those times, it was one. Two of them ended in overtime. Like I said, they like to make it interesting.

It was looking like it wouldn’t be too tense for a while there, as SU brought a 12-8 lead into the fourth quarter. But that’s the thing about lacrosse; you just never know in this game of runs.

It started innocently enough, too. In the first few minutes of the fourth, the Orange and Cavaliers traded empty possessions, with ‘Cuse turning it over twice in two chances. Not valuing possession proved costly as UVA proceeded to score four straight goals without the Orange touching the ball at all. They played true make-it-take-it and had the home team on the ropes with five minutes to go.

But the defense finally made their stop with a shot clock violation, and Caroline Trinkaus was fouled charging towards cage on the other end. Trinkaus had been having a rare off game, going pointless and making very little impact on points of attack throughout the game.

But a truly good player can turn it on at any moment, and that’s what Trinkaus did as she drew contact and finished it off with the ensuing free position. Symbolic of the toughness of the game itself, Trinkaus was surrounded and couldn’t even get a full follow-though on her shot, but the placement in the far lower corner was perfect, and the Orange had a 13-12 lead with 2:57 left in the game.

With just under two minutes to go, UVA took a shot that slammed off the crossbar and kicked around the field, waiting to be picked up. It was such a crazy loose ball that it made its way about three quarters of the way down the field before it was shoveled up into the air and settled into the cross of Carlie Desimone.

The sophomore made a phenomenal awareness play as she had the ball behind the entire defense, one-on-one with the goalie, but elected to turn out of it to preserve possession for ‘Cuse. It was the kind of play that represents the maturity of this team, and symbolizes how they’ve been able to be so effective and win these tight games even with so little collegiate experience.

Kayla Treanor called timeout to set it up for the Orange to run the clock out. But ‘Cuse turned it over twice in a frantic sequence due to two perfectly timed stick checks by Virginia, and the Cavs regained possession with 30 seconds left and called a timeout.

It took them just over 10 seconds to get the ball into their offensive end, but they did very little with the final 20 seconds as the Orange defense had one final defensive stand in them. Virginia got a shot off right at the buzzer, but it was a shovel shot facing away from the goal as SU did a great job closing all channels at the end to see the win out on a very exciting afternoon in the Dome.

The game ended as it started, in fast-and-furious fashion. In the early going, it was all offense for both teams as they dueled to a 5-5 draw in the first quarter. Tied at 2-2, UVA went on a 3-0 run in less than two minutes to grab an early lead before SU went on their own 3-0 run in two minutes to tie it right back up.

The second quarter belonged to ‘Cuse, 4-1, as they grabbed a 9-6 lead at halftime. Virginia came out much stronger in the third, scoring two of the first three, but the Orange got two back late in the quarter to outscore them 3-2 in the frame and take that 12-8 lead into the fourth before everything got tense once again.

Of the many things that happened in this game, graduate student Emma Ward (1G, 3A) reached an incredible career milestone as an assist in the third quarter helped her reach 300 points, only the seventh player to do so in program history. Right from the start, Emma has been a special and impactful player for this program, and continues to be now as the experienced leader of this young group. Congratulations to her on this wonderful achievement!

Emma led an offense on the day that found a lot of success attacking the Virginia zone. They exhibited good, crisp ball movement for much of the afternoon, and I was especially impressed with their ability to find the open space in the zone and time their movement and passing beautifully just as the defenders would rotate to open up fresh space.

Emma’s four points led the way, and she was one of three players with multiple assists against that zone. Emma Muchnick (1G, 2A) had a goal and two helpers, and Carlie Desimone (3A) had a really good day finding cutters in the middle of the zone with three of her own.

On the receiving end, Mileena Cotter (3G) led a quartet of players with multiple goals with her first-half hat trick. Gracie Britton (2G), Molly Guzik (2G) and Joely Caramelli (2G) all had a pair of goals on the afternoon.

I think Caitlin Defliese and the defense deserve credit for sticking to their guns and playing woman-to-woman all game long. They gave up five goals in the first quarter and looked disorganized at times, especially struggling with the quickness and foot speed of the Virginia dodgers. I was sure we were going to see a switch to zone to mitigate their dodging capabilities, but it never came and the defense settled in pretty nicely as the game went along.

Daniella Guyette (8SV) made eight saves to hold Virginia at bay just enough. Virginia won a back-and-forth day on draws, 16-13, and it was Meghan Rode (7DC) who led the way for ‘Cuse with seven draws.

The crazy schedule continues for the Orange with a quick turnaround, as they hit the road to face the Yale Bulldogs on Wednesday, April 2 at 1 PM on ESPN+.