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With just under three minutes remaining in the third period, tied in a piece with then-No. 13 Vermont, Syracuse returned to full strength despite wasting its third power play of the night. Then everything went wrong for Orange in the final minutes.
Twenty-six seconds after Kambel Beacom was released from the penalty box, Corrine McCool gave Vermont a 2-1 lead with just 1:52 left. With the result and time on the Catamounts’ side, SU pulled Arielle DeSmet off the net in favor of an extra skater to level. Still, Syracuse failed to get anything going on offense, resulting in Vermont scoring an empty net goal in the 3-1 win.
This season, Syracuse’s Conference win percentage (0.000 vs. 0.667), goals per game (1.27 vs. 2.67), and goals conceded per game (3.33 vs. 4.36) are significantly lower in their six games against ranked opponents . After some tough losses, Syracuse will look to add what they learned to their final conference roster.
Despite the loss, head coach Britni Smith felt her team had just played their best game of the season.
“In the dressing room I said to them, ‘I think that’s the best 60 minutes we’ve played so far this season and when we play like that there’s no team that can come in here that we can’t match with,'” Smith said. “So we’re very proud of our efforts tonight.”
With Penn State falling out of the top 15 teams in the country, Syracuse will not face any other ranked opponents for the remainder of the regular season. Ten of the last eleven games will be played against teams in his conference.
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“Games outside of the conference are usually very tough, so I think we go into it with more confidence and believe in ourselves a little bit more because we know we’re keeping up with (our opponents) and (trying to) get the momentum going to bring,” Lauren Bellefontaine said after Syracuse’s loss to No. 10 Cornell.
As bad as Syracuse was against ranked teams, it played well in its limited CHA action, winning 4-2.
In SU’s first two CHA games against RIT, it beat the Tigers 5-1, winning both games in wire-to-wire attacking.
Bellefontaine brought Orange on early after winning a faceoff against Hana Solinger in the first half of the series and passing the puck to Terryn Mozes. Mozes had an opening and took the shot but it was blocked. However, Bellefontaine read the game in full and chased the rebound to give SU an early lead and didn’t look back for the rest of the weekend.
In the following series, SU swept Lindenwood and outplayed it 8-4. Madison Primeau scored a hat trick in the first game of the series and helped the Orange Cruise to an easy win, but the second game proved to be much tougher.
Heading into the final 20 minutes, Syracuse led 3-2 before Sarah Davies leveled the game at 4-25 in the third period. For most of the third, with the score still tied, it looked like the game would go into overtime. But with less than 10 seconds left in the third, Tatum White controlled the puck with open ice in front of her.
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With no defenders covering the middle, White ran left towards the opening. Holding the puck to her left, White fired into the bottom left corner of the goal and scored the deciding goal for SU with 4.2 seconds remaining.
The victories over RIT and Lindenwood proved to be the highlight of Syracuse’s season, helping Orange start the conference unbeaten and giving SU their longest winning streak to date.
However, after his four straight wins, Syracuse was defeated by then-No. 15 Princeton the following weekend and lost his first two conference games of the season to then-No. 12 Penn State a month later.
After Kaira Zannon gave the Nittany Lions a 1-0 lead late in the first third of the two-game set, Penn State drove the rest of the way. In the weekend series, Penn State beat Syracuse 79-36 en route to outscoring Syracuse 15-3.
With eight points from their six conference games, Syracuse currently ranks third in the CHA standings. With four games remaining against Mercyhurst and two against the Nittany Lions, Syracuse has an opportunity to prove itself as a top-two team in the conference, but it must learn from its losses to top teams to do so.
“I think we improved in every single game. I don’t think we’re backing down at all,” Bellefontaine said. “Well I think that’s a big advantage and if we can keep that up for the rest of the season we’ll be successful.”
Published on January 19, 2023 at 00:11
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