After 11 minutes had gone by in the second half, Syracuse woke up.

It was at this point, with the Orange seeing its lead shrink to only one, that Michelle Tumolo, Tee Ladouceur and Amy Cross combined on a textbook display of give-and-go passing. The play reasserted the dominance of what was becoming a stagnant Syracuse attack.

Until that point, the offense hadn’t scored in more than 20 minutes of play and had given up five straight goals to a Cornell team gaining in confidence.

‘The first half of the first half was just outstanding,’ SU head coach Gary Gait said. ‘And rebounding from the lapse was nice to see. It’s better to come from behind by just rebounding before we have to get there.’

In its final regular-season home game, the Orange (8-7, 5-1 Big East) defeated the Big Red 13-9 behind a second-half stand and a combined eight goals between Tumolo and Cross. The late surge pushed Syracuse to a win over its in-state rival and boosted the team above the .500 mark for the first time since it won its first game of the season against Colgate.

The Orange avoided a loss Tuesday by withstanding a furious Cornell (5-8, 3-4 Ivy League) comeback.

The gritty Cornell team battled back after Syracuse came out flying and cruised through the first 15 minutes of the game. Halfway through the first half, Syracuse had 13 shots and six draw controls compared to Cornell’s one shot and zero controls.

‘Early in the game, we were focused and fresh and we were finding those open players,’ Gait said. ‘We converted a couple passes inside, and we were finishing. Things just went our way.’

But by the end of the frame, it was apparent Syracuse was having problems keeping the opposition out of the 8-meter arc. As a result, Cornell scored the final three goals of the first half and the first two of the second after penetrating the defense for close-range shots.

SU’s free positions were challenged as well. Cornell’s lackluster goaltending grew in confidence with each save, and Kyla Dambach turned 10 shots aside in the game. The momentum the Orange once claimed was now threatened.

Cornell’s streak carried over into the second half when Big Red junior Katie Kirk shimmied past SU’s Janelle Stegeland and scored an unassisted goal from within five feet. What was once a 7-1 lead for the Orange became 8-6 after Kirk’s goal.

‘A little letdown — I think sometimes when it comes that easy, you mentally relax a little bit,’ Gait said of the Orange’s early struggles in the second half. ‘And I think we did that. We let them back in the game. But a little bit of refocusing there at the end there, and we found the answer.’

But things turned around for the Orange when Cross and Tumolo reignited a fading Syracuse attack at the 18:59 mark. Cross netted her third goal of the game on an assist from Ladouceur, and Tumolo scored two goals in the next five minutes to push the lead back to 11-8. Cross finished with four goals on the night, equaling her total for the entire season.

‘I just felt really good,’ Cross said. ‘Our team is really good about encouraging one another. Just having my team behind me really helps.’

As Cornell began to climb back into the game, Gait’s message to his Syracuse team was simple: win the second half.

And in the end, it did. The Orange overcame a 5-0 scoring run by Cornell from the 8:24 mark of the first half to the 21:23 mark of the second. It responded by scoring five of the next six goals to escape with a win.

‘We really try to push ourselves to be the best we can that day,’ SU goaltender Liz Hogan said.

At 8-7 overall, Syracuse now stands above .500 for the first time since the first week of the season. And going back to dominating the final minutes meant building precious momentum for the final stretch of the regular season.

‘It was about winning the second half of the game,’ Gait said. ‘We had the first half won, so it’s 0-0 going into the second half. And I basically said if you win the second half, you win the game.’

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Published on April 26, 2011 at 12:00 pm