Coming into yesterday’s game, Syracuse had played Penn State 20 times, all since 1983. Syracuse lost them all.

The curse continues.

Amanda Eckert and Heather Conroy each scored a goal as No. 7 Penn State blanked No. 20 Syracuse, 2-0, yesterday afternoon at Coyne Field.

The win improved Penn State’s (5-0) record to 20-0-1 against Syracuse (3-3).

“(We) always come out nervous against Penn State because (we’ve) never beaten them before,” Syracuse head coach Kathleen Parker said. “I wish I had the solution to relax my team so we can get into the game (immediately). But I haven’t figured it out yet.”

Neither have the players.

“(Parker) was asking us at halftime, ‘Why do they intimidate you?’ ” junior Jackie Sheaffer said. “We didn’t know.”

Syracuse’s best chance came two years ago when the Orangewomen took the Nittany Lions to overtime before losing at home, 1-0.

Last year, Penn State completely dominated SU, holding it to only one shot in a 2-0 win.

Perhaps with last year’s game still in mind, Syracuse continued its trend of starting games flat.

The Nittany Lions attacked the Orangewomen deep in their zone for the first 10 minutes before Eckert’s goal put Penn State up, 1-0, eight minutes into the game. The Nittany Lions outshot the Orangewomen, 7-4, in the first half.

“Penn State always scores first, and then we feel a sense of urgency,” SU senior Michelle Marks said.

That urgency turned to panic when Conroy, a midfielder, ended a sloppy sequence of events early in the second half. With Syracuse trying to clear the ball off a corner, Conroy intercepted a pass and scored her seventh goal of the season to give PSU a 2-0 lead.

“It was a bad defensive error that resulted in a goal,” Parker said.

True to form, after digging itself a hole, SU brought more intensity.

“We went from a passive team to a more aggressive team,” Parker said. “It was just a state of mind. We moved the ball really well.”

“We started to press them,” Marks said. “That created more opportunities.”

The Orangewomen created five more shots in the second half, as they outshot the Nittany Lions, 5-4.

Still, SU came up empty.

With 16 minutes left, Marks eluded two defenders before laying a pass in front of the net. But with no one there to shoot, the Orangewomen wasted an opportunity to cut the lead in half.

“You get the ball inside the 25-yard line and you want to get something productive out of it,” Parker said. “We just turned the ball over too many times.”

So, at least until next year, Syracuse will have to think about Penn State’s streak.

“We need to play with more intensity throughout the game,” Sheaffer said. “We want to be more offensive-minded than defensive-minded

Published on September 18, 2002 at 12:00 pm