The Syracuse Orange women’s lacrosse team got the Regy Thorpe era started in the JMA Dome on Friday night, to disappointing results.
The No. 11 Orange stumbled out of the gates with a 9-5 loss to a No. 7 Maryland Terrapins team that controlled the game throughout and never allowed SU to get within touching distance after jumping ahead.
‘Cuse had the game taken to them by the more self-assured Terrapins,
who moved the ball well against the SU zone and played tough defense, headlined by goalie JJ Suriano’s 16 saves.
In contrast, the Orange looked tentative and unsure of what they were trying to do, especially when they had the ball in the offensive end. They were short on ideas and lacked imagination in attacking Maryland’s defense. The ball movement wasn’t nearly crisp enough, and the dodging rarely created anything approaching a scoring chance for SU.
The offense looked like they were lacking leadership and, for that matter, much of a game plan, at least one that was actually being executed. Beyond only mustering five goals for the game, which includes two scored in the final two minutes of the game, the Orange finished the game with a single assist. That helper came from the other side of the field on a hail mary pass that was completed for one of the late goals.
In their first game after the conclusion of the Emma Ward’s career, ‘Cuse was severely lacking for an orchestrator who could take the reigns of the offense to settle everyone down. As a result, inefficiency ruled the day for the Orange, who shot an appallingly bad 13 percent from the field.
Something fascinating about this game is that SU actually took twice as many shots as Maryland (38-19), but scored just over half as many goals due to extreme differences in efficiency by the two teams.
While Suriano deserves a lot of credit for her 16 saves, the Terps’ defense also deserves a lot for forcing the Orange offense into uncomfortable situations that they were unable to handle. As a result, a lot of ‘Cuse’s shots were weak in terms of power or forced from too far away, helping to make Suriano’s job a little more comfortable between the pipes.
The Orange’s zone defense was okay if inconsistent, surrendering single-digit goals in their first game of the season to a good Maryland team. Probably the biggest issue is that they did struggle with their rotation at times against the Terps’ ball movement. A handful of their goals were scored because the Orange were late on rotation on the backside of the zone, especially around the crease where they gave up a number of wide-open looks for goals.
Of course, those are the challenges of playing a zone, and I think they did an okay job, especially given how many new players in new positions they had out there outside of Coco Vandiver and Kaci Benoit as the mainstays. Daniella Guyette had a mixed bag of a day, finishing with eight saves and a .471 save percentage. She did what she could while facing a ton of free position opportunities and a lot of open looks from Maryland’s offense.
One of the hottest topics surrounding this team coming into the season was the issue of draw controls coming off the struggles of last year’s team. The answer through game one was a pretty solid one, and it came in the form of sophomore Molly Guzik, who got a big bump in playing time right away from her rookie season.
Guzik took every draw for the Orange on the day, earning a 50-50 share as each team won eight for the game, led by Molly’s six DCs. It was a good effort against a solid Maryland draw unit returning most of their major contributors from last season, and hopefully it provides something to build off of moving forward.
For SU, their problem was far from gaining possession for themselves; it was efficiency with the ball and with their decision making one they got possession.
Looking back, this game seemed doomed from the early moments for ‘Cuse. After hitting the pipe several times in the early going to help keep them off the scoreboard, the Orange eventually surrendered a few chances and ended up down 3-0 by the end of the first quarter. The squandering of early opportunities was something they really never recovered from as the Terps would take the lead and never even come close to relinquishing it.
Caroline Trinkaus scored her first of two in the first minute of the second quarter to make it 3-1, but that was as close as SU would get. The Terps scored the final three goals of the quarter to take a commanding 6-1 lead into halftime.
The Orange were a little better in the third, as Trinkaus and Guzik both scored off individual efforts to make it a 7-3 game entering the fourth. But Maryland fired right back with a pair of goals to reach their biggest lead of the day at 9-3, where the scoreline remained until the final two minutes when Mileena Cotter and Joely Caramelli got on the board to make the final score appear a little more respectable.
I will give them credit for continuing to fight and put up a couple scores deep into a game that was long over, but unfortunately they never found the execution to match on a brutal day in the Dome to begin Regy Thorpe’s tenure.
