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When the fourth-quarter buzzer sounded, Vivian Rowan dropped her stick near Syracuse’s bench and paced over to join the clump of her Syracuse teammates gathering near its cage. Behind the freshman, a stoic Ange Bradley shook hands with Wake Forest head coach Jennifer Averill on the sidelines and gave back pats to assistant coaches before approaching the group — the one that had just secured a 2-1 lead minutes prior and slid by another ranked opponent.

In a game featuring a Laura Graziosi fourth-period penalty goal with just two minutes remaining, No. 7 Syracuse (9-2, 3-0 Atlantic Coast) edged out No. 15 Wake Forest (5-6, 1-3 ACC) 2-1 on Friday. 

Last season, Syracuse posted a .500 record. Now, with “battle wounds” — as Bradley puts it — from 2020, SU has kept its longest winning streak since 2017 intact and maintained it through ranked play.

In 2015, Syracuse recorded an undefeated regular season record, ranked first in the country and won the NCAA Championship. But shortly after, seniors including All-American Alyssa Manley graduated, and Syracuse couldn’t match the same peak it had reached before.

Two years after, Syracuse kickstarted its season with a 7-0 start before faltering toward the end of its season in ACC play. In 2018 and 2020, the Orange posted 8-8 records while Bradley had to rebuild her roster and grow her players.

Syracuse hasn’t been able to string together more than four wins in a row and couldn’t defeat top-ranked teams like North Carolina until this season. With a bolstered roster and a new wave of All-American players such as Charlotte de Vries and Eefke van den Nieuwenhof, Syracuse is nearly matching the same consistency it had during and shortly after its championship.

“I just think we’re growing up and (maturing). If you look at our record last year, we were 8-8 and only ACC play and a ton of freshmen,” Bradley said. “(Now) we’re right there.”

The Demon Deacons, the team that eventually broke Syracuse’s streak in 2017, pressed early in the game. Four minutes in, Wake Forest’s Nat Friedman ran into Syracuse’s shooting circle and rifled a shot that went wide left. Two minutes later, the Orange gained possession. SJ Quigley’s white Adidas sneakers toed the baseline for three total Syracuse penalty corners within 40 seconds of one another. But even with set-ups from Quirine Comans, all three didn’t go in.

With six minutes in the half, de Vries fed the ball up to a beelining Pleun Lammers, who beat her defender and drove into the right side of the shooting circle. Lammers lifted her stick to cross the ball near the front of the cage, where Comans was stationed. The graduate student collected the ball and tapped it into the left side of the net to put Syracuse up 1-0.

The Orange carried the momentum into the second half and accumulated seven total shots, compared to only two from Wake Forest. In the third period, however, the Demon Deacons began to press, securing back-to-back penalty corners with less than a minute in. 

Hannah Maxwell corralled the ball behind two Syracuse defenders on the left side of the field, turned herself around and broke into the shooting circle. Maxwell then rifled her shot into the left corner, leaving Brooke Borzymowski lying on the ground.

“We got a little bit frantic and chasing the game,” Bradley said. “Just not playing mature hockey.”

In the beginning of the fourth, Bradley crouched on the sideline as she watched her team kick-start a final offensive push. Syracuse gained its sixth penalty corner with six minutes remaining but couldn’t capitalize until four minutes later when Claire Cooke was tripped up on the left side of the circle for a penalty shot. 

Bradley said Graziosi offered to take it, and the senior midfielder lined up her stick’s silver head at the penalty mark. Graziosi knocked it back into the left corner.

“I closed my eyes, said a Hail Mary, just like, ‘I surrender this. I can’t control it anymore,’” Cooke said. “I was just glad she scored.”

With two minutes remaining, Wake Forest began to press into the 25-yard mark. But a last-second heave on the right side from the Demon Deacons’ Abby Carpenter went into Syracuse sticks, and any chance of a comeback vanished. 

Published on October 9, 2021 at 12:39 am

Contact Christopher: [email protected] | @chrisscargs