Emily Hawryschuk didn’t stop running as Virginia’s Maggie Jackson scooped the ball. After winning the draw, Jackson paused before taking the ball up. But Hawryschuk was waiting. The junior twisted her stick and upended the ball out of Jackson’s pocket.

As the ball rolled on the Carrier Dome turf, Hawryschuk sprinted to the 10-yard line, stalled for a couple seconds, swerved to the middle and found the back of the net to extend SU’s lead to six.

“We needed the ball then,” Hawryschuk said. “I wanted to follow (Jackson) and anything that I did pop up, I would get.”

It didn’t just take No. 4 Syracuse’s (6-1, 1-1 Atlantic Coast) elite group of defenders — Sarah Cooper, Kerry Defliese, Ella Simkins, Alexa Radziewicz — to overpower No. 6 Virginia (5-1, 0-1 Atlantic Coast) but all 11 players on the field. SU’s zone caused errant passes from the middle and its press forced UVA players to turn the ball over in transition. Led by three caused turnovers by each member of SU’s starting backline, and 15 caused turnovers total, the Orange stifled any opportunity for the Cavaliers in Saturday’s 16-11 win.

“It’s part of our mentality,” Defliese said. “We just want to cause turnovers.”

Syracuse’s defense — a collection of upperclassmen and its “rover,” Cooper — has been a stark contrast to last year’s squad, head coach Gary Gait said. Allowing under 10 goals a game has quantified its improvement, but its abundance of fouls and big scoring runs from top-five teams like Boston College and Northwestern have deflated some successes.

At its best, Syracuse’s defense is causing turnovers, Defliese said. So when Saturday’s matchup started as an up-and-down affair — SU and UVA traded the first nine goals of the game — the Orange defense collided inside, inching closer to goalkeeper Asa Goldstock.

Back-to-back turnovers in the first five minutes turned into scoring trips. The next possession, Simkins tracked freshman Lillie Kloak up the field, knocked down her stick and picked up the ball. 

“We just had to be aggressive and make clean checks,” Gait said. “Pressing when needed and battling on the ground when we had to.”

When Virginia made it within 15 yards of the net, Gait screamed “help, help, help” on several occasions until a second defender came to the ball. After a 5-4 advantage, the Orange ran off three-straight goals and limited the Cavaliers to just one goal in the final nine minutes of the half.

A five-goal advantage and 12 early UVA turnovers should’ve distanced Syracuse from the No. 6 team in the country, Gait said, but for the third consecutive game, the Orange didn’t play their “best for a full 60 minutes.” Fouls created two free position goals to start the final 30 minutes. The defensive aggressiveness that led the Orange to a dominate first half started to be its crutch.

“We just want to limit fouls in the middle,” Defliese said of Syracuse’s 29 fouls. “The other ones, just keep going.”

That’s when Defliese, who hadn’t gotten on the stat sheet yet, got more involved. Defliese caused a forcing-through call at the end of Virginia’s 4-1 scoring run, and set up the Orange to burn 90 seconds of clock.

Two possessions later, UVA’s Avery Shoemaker was cornered by Defliese and Cooper. Cooper’s presence as a “backer” allows players, like Defliese, to play out of position, Gait said — sometimes higher up, other times deeper. So when Defliese dipped back, she let Shoemaker pass her. But the SU junior nicked her stick in the process, swiping the ball in the Dome’s end zone.

“We had our defense making big plays,” Hawryschuk said. “So we had that drive to put that ball in the back of the net.”

When the defense faltered, though, in a 15-minute stretch during the middle of the second half, Goldstock came through. She deflected two-straight free positions on one possession and forced the third to be passed out. A subtle “defense” chant from the Syracuse sideline emerged, and Cooper intercepted a cornered-Cavaliers’ pass seconds later. Any comeback within the final five minutes was halted by the Orange zone, and they pulled away.

When Gait thought back to his defensive squad from last year at the podium after SU’s five-goal win, he was floored. His eyes rolled up, and his head shifted back at the reminder of 21 goals against North Carolina in the ACC tournament last April. His defense isn’t that different with similar personnel, but it’s finally playing different, he said. It’s finally backing up Syracuse’s powerhouse offense.

“There’s better communication now, they make plays. They’re stepping up,” Gait said. “That’s made us a better defense.”

Published on March 2, 2019 at 8:30 pm

Contact KJ: [email protected] | @KJEdelman