The Syracuse Orange’s 11th straight win was their craziest yet, as they overcame some critical late penalties to narrowly escape Koskinen Stadium with a 10-9 win over the Duke Blue Devils on a warm Saturday afternoon in Durham.
The temps in the area may have been hot, but the action on the field was hotter as the teams traded blows in a back-and-forth slugfest where the goal was be the last team still on your feet. In the end, it was the Orange who absorbed the direct hits better and gutted out a hard-fought
win that took until the final seconds to secure.
‘Cuse appeared on their way to a more comfortable victory midway through the fourth quarter, but that all changed when Izzy Lahah committed an unreleasable, two-minute dangerous contact yellow card for a very unnecessary up-high cross check on Duke’s Ava Pronti.
The Blue Devils, who scored a whopping five of their nine goals on the woman-up, made Lahah and the Orange pay dearly for that mistake.
At that moment, ‘Cuse had scored the game’s last four goals and had a 9-6 lead with a little over seven minutes remaining in the game. It looked like they had already landed the knockout punch and were ready to once again ride their shutdown defense to the finish line.
But Duke had different ideas on the back of Lahah’s penalty. They proceeded with a good ole’ fashioned round of make-it-take-it, resulting in three goals in the span of 89 seconds to tie the game at 9-9 with 5:20 on the clock and six seconds still remaining on Lahah’s penalty.
It was a spiraling sequence of events that felt like it put the Orange on the canvas, but you know a team that’s won 10 games in a row isn’t staying down that easily.
Duke even won the ensuing draw after they tied it, looking for more, but Bri Peters stepped in front of a clearing pass off the draw like a lockdown cornerback to create what turned out to be the first of three straight turnovers between the two teams that ended with ‘Cuse back in possession and calling a timeout to talk things over with 3:43 left.
Out of the timeout, the Orange came down and spent almost the entire shot clock searching for the look that would give them the lead, and they just barely did. With time running out, Ashlee Volpe dodged towards GLE on the left side and threw back upfield to a cutting Emma Muchnick, who was making a diagonal run from the top of the eight-meter towards Volpe through the arc. Muchnick caught the pass and quickly swung her stick low to beat Duke goalie Hope Schoudel five-hole with two seconds on the shot clock for the eventual game-winning goal. By the way, shoutout to Alexa Vogelman for scooping up an absolutely massive loose ball after Duke deflected a pass just seconds before the winning connection was made.
It was a thrilling moment for SU, especially given the time constraints and the fact that they punched back after Duke’s three-goal spurt, but we weren’t even close to done even with just 2:18 remaining.
‘Cuse won the ensuing draw but quickly turned it over, and Duke took possession with a little over a minute and a half left. After a timeout, they worked a great look just a few yards out in front of the crease in between a pair of on-rushing defenders. They got the shot off, and Dan Guyette was there to make a huge stop with 55 seconds remaining. She confidently stepped up in the crease and met the shot while cutting off the angle, turning it away right on the cross of her stick.
The Orange picked up the ground ball and called timeout, but on a very tenuous clear attempt, Courtney Maclay got yard-saled and Duke earned the turnover, which was made much worse when Bri Peters picked up a green card for tripping as the Blue Devils scooped up the loose ball.
To that point in the game, Duke has scored five woman-up goals on five opportunities, so it was a dangerous moment to say the least, even with only 19 seconds remaining. And those concerns turned out to be founded, when Duke’s Ava Biancardi took a shot that hit Guyette’s shoulder and deflected up into the pipe before it was grabbed by Alexa Vogelman for her second massive ground ball of the last few minutes. She ran out the last couple seconds, and the Orange grabbed the win by the narrowest of margins thanks to Guyette’s shoulder and her best friend the pipe.
It was a tense and breathless finish to an exciting ACC battle on one of the best spring days the season has seen so far. Emma Muchnick (3G, 1A), Ashlee Volpe (3G, 1A) and Molly Guzik (3G) all posted hat tricks and combined for nine of the 10 goals, while Mackenzie Rich (2A) added a pair of assists and Bri Peters (1G) scored the other goal.
The Orange had a rough go of it offensively for much of the afternoon, looking stagnant off-ball and relying far too much of individual dodges. It felt at times like they were maybe being impacted by the first really warm game day of the season. But they found enough of a rhythm in the third quarter to initiate a four-goal run right before Lahah’s penalty that gave them the separation required to survive that two-minute unreleasable run.
The defense looked like their usual selves, holding Duke to separate scoreless droughts of over 17 minutes between the first and second quarters and over 20 minutes between the third and fourth quarters. Before the penalty, they had only given up six goals through 53 minutes, and still surrendered single-digits even afterwards, five of which were on woman-up.
Dan Guyette was stellar in net, finishing with eight saves and playing hero with two massive saves in the final minute of the game to hold strong and preserve the victory.
After a very tight, back-and-forth first half that saw the Orange take a 5-4 lead into halftime, Duke temporarily took control of the game with a three-goal run that started with 26 seconds left in the second quarter. They scored their trio in just under three and a half minutes to take a 6-5 lead early in the third to put ‘Cuse in a second-half deficit for the first time in a while.
After going scoreless and looking tired for more than 12 minutes, SU went on the longest run of the game to re-take control, scoring four goals in exactly eight minutes to take their 9-6 lead. Volpe scored three of those four goals, and after starting the game on the bench in favor of Annie Parker, putting her back into the lineup midway through the game proved to be a huge catalyst for Regy Thorpe and the Orange offense during their most crucial run of the afternoon. On top of her hat trick that put ‘Cuse in the driver’s seat, she also assisted the game-winning goal by keeping her cool late in the shot clock after Duke had tied the game up.
In the end, it was another strong effort from a team that has proven time and again that they are very comfortable operating in tightly-contested, low-scoring slugfests that very often go down to the wire. Regy Thorpe praised his team’s composure after the game, and there’s not much arguing with that.
Regy and the Orange will return home for next weekend’s clash with the Notre Dame Fighting Irish on Saturday at 12 PM on ACC Network Extra.
