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With 8:45 remaining in the third period, Quirine Comans received a pass inside the circle. Comans then took that ball past a Duke defender, leaving herself one-on-one with goaltender Piper Hampsch. Comans’ initial shot was blocked by Hampsch, but Comans secured the rebound for her first goal of the night to give Syracuse a 4-0 lead over ACC rival Duke.

In No. 10 Syracuse’s (6-1, 1-0 Atlantic Coast) 5-1 win over No. 18 Duke (3-4, 0-1 ACC), the Orange’s offense and defense were in sync, allowing them to capture a dominant victory. Syracuse quickly took the lead on the Blue Devils, scoring twice in the first quarter. On the other hand, Duke only scored once all game on seven shots. The Orange outshot the Blue Devils 11-7 on the afternoon. Four different players scored for SU.

The first quarter was a showdown between the two National Field Hockey Coaches Association ranked teams, with Duke and Syracuse charging the ball up and down the field. In the first quarter, Syracuse did a good job controlling possession of the ball. The Orange made very few errors and kept the Blue Devils on the defensive end for much of the first period.

Syracuse opened up the scoring off a penalty corner four minutes into the matchup. Charlotte DeVries slotted the ball past Duke goaltender Hampsch. Syracuse then added on another score six minutes later with a goal by Joy Haarman, who made a timely individual play on the ball. Duke challenged the goal with its own strong attack, but its play was unsuccessful as SU took a 2-0 lead by the end of the first period.

“We talk about this all the time in practice,” DeVries said. “We want to get two in five, get an outcome within the first five minutes.”

Overall, the first period was all Syracuse. Syracuse had two penalty corners to Duke’s zero and three shots on goal compared to Duke’s zero.

The second quarter was much of the same as Syracuse controlled the game flow for the majority of the period. The offense kept the pressure on early with DeVries scoring her second goal 20 minutes in, giving Syracuse a 3-0 lead. The defense did their part by stopping four straight penalty corners from the Blue Devils midway through the second quarter.

Syracuse was extremely solid on defense throughout the first half. The Orange intercepted countless passes by the Blue Devils and Syracuse defenders did a good job preventing Duke players from getting quality shots on Syracuse goalie Brooke Borzymowski.

“I thought that we stepped up our pressure,” head coach Ange Bradley said. “In the third quarter I thought we started to get sloppy, but overall we put pretty good pressure on them.”

Syracuse put together another shutout through the first three quarters, though Duke’s Josephine Palde brought Duke back within four goals of Syracuse at 5-1.

The third quarter started off strong once again for Syracuse with the Orange getting a good shot on goal early by Haarman. 40 minutes into the game, Comans scored her eighth goal of the season giving Syracuse a near insurmountable 4-0 lead with a quarter and a half left to go in the game.

Duke seemed frustrated by Syracuse all game long. Duke was unable to find any sort of consistency in their offense for the majority of the game as they were constantly having to defend Syracuse’s shots. Though Duke matched Syracuse with seven penalty corners on the day, none made it past Borzymowksi.

On the Orange’s fifth corner of the evening, Eefke van den Nieuwenhof scored her first goal of the afternoon to grant Syracuse a 5-0 lead at the end of the third quarter. Syracuse’s attacking structure continued to pay dividends as the Orange won penalty corners and got off countless shots.

“We’ve had the same attacking structure all season,” DeVries said. “It comes with connections in the attacking end — I think that comes with time.”

Published on September 16, 2022 at 8:32 pm

Contact Michael: mdphilip@syr.edu