Sixty yards from the net and 45 seconds into sudden-death overtime, Allie Murray held Syracuse’s hopes in her stick. The goalkeeper had, as she’d done a half-dozen times throughout the game, come out aggressively to clear and push the Orange offense up the field.

This time though, Murray walked deeper into the zone and a Florida defender jumped to her. She wheeled to look for an open teammate she’d never find.

“We’re usually pretty good at (that play),” SU head coach Gary Gait said. “It’s a guaranteed clear every time pretty much. Today that wasn’t the case.”

Florida’s Mollie Stevens smacked Murray’s stick. The ball popped free, Sammi Burgess scooped it up and was fouled after a 50-yard sprint toward the Syracuse goal.

The Orange had two defenders 8 yards from the goal, but Murray was forced to stop behind the pack. When play began again, neither of those defenders was able to stop Burgess from making a simple pass to Stevens, who rifled a game-winner into an empty net to give No. 3 Florida (5-0) an 11-10 win over No. 2 SU (5-1) in the Carrier Dome on Tuesday afternoon.

That one play symbolized Syracuse’s inability to hold onto both the ball, which it turned over 16 times, and the lead, which it lost three times throughout the contest. Murray’s third and final turnover was the last straw.

“It seems like we kind of don’t value the ball in the first half,” Gait said. “Like, ‘Oh, no worries, we’ll just rally for the second half.’ We put ourselves in a tougher situation than taking care of the ball from the start.”

In the first half, Syracuse committed a season-high 13 turnovers. Despite the sloppy play, the Orange found itself leading after 25 minutes by drawing free-position shots and working the ball around the 8-meter line. Four straight goals ended a Florida run and gave SU a 4-3 lead.

Seconds later, UF’s Shayna Pirreca found a cutting Burgess across the middle. Burgess faked a shot, baiting Murray out of the goal, and wrapped a shot around the goalkeeper’s outstretched stick. Murray finished the game with more turnovers than saves (2).

Florida had erased Syracuse’s lead in 21 seconds. And the Gators didn’t stop there, turning two more turnovers into goals in the last moments of the first half.

“We had to get into our groove,” said SU attack Riley Donahue. “It just sucked that we didn’t get into it too early.”

Syracuse got into that “groove” after halftime, going on a 5-1 run to take a 9-7 advantage that it held for nearly 12 minutes. But eventually it lost that, too, as SU assistant Regy Thorpe pleaded with the defense from the sideline.

“Come on!” he yelled with the Orange clinging to a 9-8 lead. “Move! Move!”

Syracuse defenders listened, but Florida’s Nicole Graziano spiked her stick into the turf as her goal once again brought the game level with 6:56 left.

When Stevens gave UF a 10-9 lead two minutes later, all Gait could do was put the back of his hand over his mouth. Thorpe pulled his hat over his eyes then off his head. Michelle Tumolo, a former Florida assistant coach who now holds the same position at Syracuse, stood with her hands over her head while watching the replay on the video board.

Syracuse’s leading goal-scorer Halle Majorana scored her 14th of the season with 2:46 to play, but it only tied the game.

The Orange had already let its last lead slip away.

“We just made too many mistakes,” Gait said. “… You make mistakes and you pay the price.”

Published on March 1, 2016 at 5:16 pm

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