Jessica Sibley finally got the opportunity that Syracuse had been waiting for all night. Unguarded just a couple of feet beyond the crease, Sibley unleashed a slap shot in the direction of Lindenwood goalie Nicole Hensley.

With the score tied and just three minutes left in the game, the shot felt like a potential precursor to a heroic ending.

But in just a split second, the optimism turned to frustration. Hensley lunged to her left and took the puck out of the air to preserve the tie. The crowd, which had seen numerous missed shots on goal all night, let out another collective groan.

“It’s frustrating you have a chance like that, and the goalie saved it,” Sibley said. “She’s a good goalie, so good on her.”

Saying Hensley was good could be considered an understatement. Syracuse took 47 shots on goal throughout the evening, and 46 stayed out of the net, as the Orange dropped Friday’s game to Lindenwood, 2-1. On Saturday, Syracuse (8-8-2, 3-3-2 College Hockey America) rebounded to pick up a 4-1 win over the Lady Lions (2-14-2, 2-5-1).

But on Friday, the Orange offense couldn’t muster any momentum all game against Hensley. The sophomore goalie came in with a high pedigree after saving an NCAA Division I record 90 shots in a CHA tournament game against Robert Morris last season that lasted three overtimes. The previous record was 78. She also led the nation with 1,803 saves in her rookie campaign.

“Early on we were trying to go for the big hit and I likened it to a boxing match,” Syracuse head coach Paul Flanagan said. “Little jabs early in the bout, start getting her some early jabs, and get after, and then maybe enough jabs will add up. We didn’t do that.”

Margot Scharfe said although the Orange more than doubled Lindenwood in shot attempts, SU wasn’t getting great looks because it was allowing Hensley to get too good of a look at its shots.

“She has a good glove hand, so you have to get more traffic in front of the net to make things happen,” Scharfe said. “She saw too many shots.“

The Orange, which has been especially strong on the power play this season, connected on just one man-up chance in seven tries.

Unaware of his team’s futility on the power play, Flanagan asked an SU Athletics representative to take a look at the stat sheet during his postgame press conference. The number didn’t please him.

“We couldn’t generate enough momentum,” he said. “We couldn’t get anything going.”

Caitlin Roach was the only Syracuse player to connect, when she tied the score late in the second period on a coast-to-coast goal. It was the only bright spot for an otherwise lackluster performance against a defense that was allowing 4.4 goals per game on the road this season.

“Even though we tied the game up, it felt like our team was going to take something from that but there’s no feeling of momentum on our side,” Roach said. “It felt like Lindenwood still had momentum on their side of the puck.

“It didn’t feel like we took our chances to capitalize.”

Published on December 8, 2013 at 10:11 pm

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