Lies Lagerweij surveyed her options and decided her best one was just to take the ball up herself. With a quick twitch, she squirmed through a Drexel double team and charged toward the baseline. Lagerweij turned and wound up, firing a pass into the arc.

All alone, Caroline Cady nudged the ball into the net.

“I’ve been thinking about (playing Lagerweij at forward) for a while,” SU head coach Ange Bradley said.

No. 7 Syracuse (11-4, 2-4 Atlantic Coast) found a spark on offense by moving Lagerweij to forward on Sunday afternoon. The senior All-American scored a goal and recorded two assists as SU shutout Drexel (5-10, 0-2 Colonial), 4-0, at J.S. Coyne Stadium.

“I might’ve hinted here and there,” Lagerweij said of playing forward, “but it’s Ange, and she’s going to do what’s best for the team.”

Moving Lagerweij to forward, senior midfielder Laura Hurff said, was to hopefully open up Syracuse’s otherwise stagnant offense. On the season, the Orange has averaged just more than 2.5 goals a game a year after averaging 3.5.

Creativity, Lagerweij said, is one of the things she brought to the Orange’s attack. Pushing down into the corner, Lagerweij slid no-look passes to forwards, opening up the offense for SU.

Midway through the second half, Lagerweij had the ball near the baseline. She faked a run at Dragons goalie Erin Gilchrist, opening up a path to flick a blind pass to a cutting Carolin Hoffmann. The Orange ended up earning a penalty corner after an out-of-position Drexel defender locked up Hoffmann’s stick.

“As a forward you get to be creative,” Lagerweij said. “It’s fun in a different way. It’s more so trying to break someone else’s game plan than trying to execute your own.”

Even as a forward, Lagerweij still assumed her usual role of taking penalty corners alongside Roos Weers. Roughly nine minutes into the game, Syracuse lined up for a corner, but Hurff’s insertion came in slow. It forced Weers to possess before she threw the ball to the middle of the crease. There, it found Emma Tufts, and as the defense collapsed on the forward, she found Lagerweij.

After the errant insertion, Lagerweij had drift left toward the baseline. Setting up about five yards off Gilchrist’s right post, Lagerweij took the pass from Tufts and gave SU a lead it wouldn’t relinquish.

“She’s so talented,” Bradley said. “She reads the game, she has great hands. It doesn’t matter what position she’s in, she’s good.”

SU only has two games remaining before it enters the ACC tournament. Behind a defense that has only allowed 10 goals all season, Syracuse has become susceptible to one-goal losses this season — 3-2 to North Carolina and 2-1 to Louisville, Virginia and Wake Forest.

If Syracuse wants to go where it expects to be, it will need to be able to muster more than one goal against top teams.

“We have a really great defense,” Hurff said, “… now we just have to start to learn how to finish.”

The good news for Syracuse, though, is that Lagerweij might be able to help.

Published on October 15, 2017 at 4:49 pm

Contact Andrew: [email protected] | @A_E_Graham