Bailey Larson had already tallied one breakaway goal for Colgate, and as she skated in on a partial breakaway with about 30 seconds left in the second period, it looked like she would do it again.

As Larson closed in on Syracuse goaltender Abbey Miller with the puck on her stick, Miller came out of the net to poke it to the corner. But Miller didn’t get enough on it and Larson had a chance to recollect the puck and catch Miller way out of her crease.

Just as it seemed Larson would give Colgate a 3-2 lead in the dying moments of the second period, Megan Quinn crashed down in the corner and got a stick on Larson’s, and the puck ricocheted safely across the ice and to the opposite corner.

Constant poke checks, pass break ups and selling out to block passes and shots wasn’t enough for Syracuse (0-4-1) in its efforts to stymie No. 5 Colgate’s (5-0) offense. The Orange fell, 3-2, on Friday night at Tennity Ice Pavilion.

“That’s something we focused on in practice,” Stephanie Grossi said, “just getting our sticks in the right place and being a hard team to play against and we have to keep doing that if we want to win.”

Just three days after SU head coach Paul Flanagan preached the importance of “stick management,” the Orange did more than just that, it used stick play to dominate early.

Syracuse came out in the first period on a mission, scoring two goals within the five minutes of play. The first was a Grossi short-handed goal, that came off a deflected pass as Colgate moved the puck on the power play.

Just 1:39 later, Kelli Rowswell scored her first career goal, also shorthanded, as she picked up a deflected puck in the neutral zone and fought off a Colgate defender to shoot and score.

From there, Syracuse’s offense stalled, but whenever Colgate had a scoring chance, or was starting to move the puck, an Orange player would come sliding in and knock the puck away.

“I know they’re a fast team and they’re aggressive so being to do anything to break up their passes is something we need to do,” Larissa Martyniuk said.

As the game wore on, Syracuse found it harder and harder to score, only registering two shots on three power-play attempts all game, but SU was able to hang around with a Colgate offense that had scored 17 goals in four games to date.

The Raiders style involved quick passing to find one of their many talented shooters in an open lane, and the Orange was able to smother that attack for most of the game because its sticks were always in passing lanes and knocking pucks off sticks.

“Kind of the old adage ‘get stick on puck’ and try to be disruptive,” Flanagan said, “I thought we’re doing a better job, particularly some of our defensemen. I noticed Quinn was good, and (Allie) Munroe and (Lindsay) Eastwood and Marty (Martyniuk), our four defensemen that played a lot.”

Despite the good work for most of the game, Syracuse couldn’t keep it up for 60 minutes. Colgate clawed a goal back late in the first as Lauren Wildfang scored. Then in the second Larson tied it on a breakaway.

Failure to use its sticks in the third period likely cost Syracuse the game as Jessie Eldridge rang a shot off the crossbar on the power play to make it 3-2, Colgate. She was all alone in the right faceoff circle, and most of the Orange players nearby got caught watching.

Colgate had similar chances earlier on, but there had always been a Syracuse defender to knock the puck away, or deflect the shot.

“There’s some positives obviously …” Flanagan said, “It was unfortunate, the last (goal). We just didn’t make a play on that girl (Eldridge), she was just all alone. It was almost like it was frozen in time, nobody moved.”

Published on October 22, 2016 at 12:28 am

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