Syracuse head coach Gary Gait stood a few feet from attack Nicole Levy. The clock was running down with about nine minutes left in the second half. Levy was on the field, accompanied toward the sideline by Duke’s Callie Humphrey, who stuck by Levy’s side all game.

In that moment, Levy filled the role she occupied for most of the game: face-guarded spectator.

“Unfortunately, she gets the ball, they double her, so she ends up just having to move it,” Gait said. “It’s tough to utilize a player where they’re just gonna do that.”

No. 20 Duke’s (7-4, 2-2 Atlantic Coast) plan to shutdown No. 12 Syracuse (7-5, 0-3) seemed to start with shutting down Levy, who began and ended Saturday’s game with 27 goals on the season. It continued with pressure high up the field and a disciplined defense that the Orange just couldn’t break down. SU entered the game with the country’s second-best shooting percentage, but the Blue Devils clamped down and ensured an easy win for the visitors, 17-10.

This was the third loss of the season for Syracuse in which the Orange managed just 10 goals. For a team that averages 15.82 goals per game, that’s a shift into a lower gear. All three of the 10-goal outputs have come in the last four games, played in eight days. First, it was 10 goals at Notre Dame. The midwest drought continued at Northwestern with 10 goals just two days later. And after a refreshing 17 goals at Princeton, the Orange brought the 10-goal act home on Saturday.

Gait called Saturday’s defeat a “carbon copy” of those two prior losses. In all three, the Orange made about one-third of its shots, with the worst ratio coming against Duke (10-of-32).

“That comes from not taking our time, and forcing some shots,” Gait said. “And getting shots and not putting them away.”

With fewer than 10 minutes remaining in the first half, Syracuse’s Emily Hawryschuk earned a free-position shot from straight on. With about 10 seconds left on the shot clock, she fired from a sidearm slot, pulling the ball wide left. SU followed up the miss but the shot clock ran out seconds later. Syracuse normally features a quick-strike offense, but on Saturday it was anything but. Time and again, the Duke fans grew animated as the timer moved past 20 seconds.

“When we play a lot of defense we don’t want to run down the field and take a shot in the first 10 seconds,” Hawryschuk said. “… We tried to slow it down a little bit, but we’ve just got to execute in the end.”

There were long stretches where Syracuse’s offense got very few chances to operate. An almost full-field pressure from the Blue Devils turned the game into a turnover-fest in the midfield. Duke turned it over 16 times and SU turned it over 17. In the long sequences of back and forth without much possession, SU’s attack waited while its midfielders ran themselves into the ground.

Midway through the second half, Syracuse midfielder Sam Swart tried to use her speed to win a race up the left sideline. But she couldn’t find the edge and was ushered out of bounds by a double team.

“Chemistry and communication were lacking a little bit,” SU midfielder Taylor Gait said of the struggles to break Duke down.

Levy spent the majority of the game stationed on her position along the left attacking sideline, giving her teammates an opportunity to operate with more space in a six-on-six set. The rest of Syracuse’s attack struggled to make the extra space matter.

The Orange couldn’t even find a consolation goal. Cara Quimby had a chance inside of 30 seconds and fired past Duke goalie Gabbe Cadoux’s left hip, only to find the right post. Swart tracked down the ensuing ground ball, and eventually Hawryschuk earned a free-position shot.

Three seconds remained. The Blue Devils were up seven. The Duke faithful, filling most of a section with royal blue and white, were all on their feet, applauding with the result well in hand.

Hawryschuk let her shot rip, aiming toward the lower-left corner of the cage. But Cadoux’s right foot deflected the shot away as the clock hit zero. Cadoux shook the foot once, as if it hurt, and took a tentative step toward the sideline. But as her teammates rushed to meet her and celebrate, it didn’t seem to hurt anymore.

Syracuse’s attack trickled off the field, silent once more. It was Duke’s celebration around its goalie that made all the noise.

Published on March 31, 2018 at 4:20 pm

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