Going into Sunday’s national championship game, Kailah Kempney said she felt the pressure to win draws.

In Syracuse’s previous two games against Maryland, Taylor Cummings dominated Syracuse in the circle, even though the Orange is one of the nation’s best at draw controls.

In the first 4:20 those fears were justified. Maryland won the game’s first five draws and jumped out to a five-goal lead before Syracuse ever got possession.

“We had to have the ball,” Alyssa Murray said. “…Maybe if we had a couple more balls bounce our way, it would’ve been a different story.”

No. 2-seed Syracuse (22-3, 6-1 Atlantic Coast) won 13-of-29 draws in the contest and lost the national championship game, 15-12, to top-seeded Maryland (23-1, 6-1) at Johnny Unitas Stadium. Neither Kempney nor Kirkland Locey could get into a groove on draws when the Orange needed them most, and flow in the circle dictated the flow of the game.

“I think draw controls were huge,” Cummings said. “We just came out, we were fired up and we were ready to go. We didn’t want to play with fear.”

After Syracuse closed the gap to 5-4 in the first half, Cummings snagged the following draw out of the air. She then ran it all the way downfield before flicking a shot past SU goalie Alyssa Costantino, erasing Syracuse’s momentum in the process.

Cummings used her height to her advantage, often flinging the ball high up in the air and snagging it above Kempney’s stick.

All season, Syracuse players have said, “win the draw and win the game.”

Against Maryland, they did neither.

“Bottom line,” SU head coach Gary Gait said, “we just didn’t get ball on the draw controls.”

 

Published on May 26, 2014 at 2:17 pm

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