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In the final four minutes of a physical second period, Syracuse once again found itself on the penalty kill, clinging to a one-goal advantage.

After successfully fending off Boston University’s first 24 shots and two prior power plays, the Orange were on their heels. Shorthanded, SU allowed the tying goal. BU’s Christina Vote received a pass from Julia Shaunessy and found Clara Yuhn near the crease, who slotted the puck past Syracuse goalkeeper Allie Kelley and knotted the game at 1-1. The floodgates opened from there.

Syracuse (2-6-0, 0-0-0 Atlantic Hockey America) conceded three goals in just over five minutes, falling 4-1 to Boston University (5-3-0, 4-1-0 Hockey East Association) Friday evening. The Orange dropped their sixth consecutive game despite scoring early and standing strong defensively for most of the first two periods.

“I thought we did a lot of things really well tonight, but the consistency just wasn’t there,” SU head coach Britni Smith said postgame. “I thought we generated a lot more offense than we have been in the last couple games, but just weren’t able to find a way.”

Coming off a five-game stretch in which they scored just four goals, the Orange were aggressive in trying to find the net. After pelting five shots on net in the opening seven minutes, SU finally lit the lamp. Charli Kettyle received a pass from Tatum White and fired a shot from just outside the crease past Callie Shanahan to put Syracuse up 1-0 eight minutes in.

“We definitely found opportunities tonight,” Smith said. “We found ourselves in that scoring area with pucks on our stick. We’re getting our chances. We’ve been working a lot on generating offense. It’s a process for us, and it’ll come.”

For the next 20 minutes, the Orange held on. Despite several chances to add another in the first period, SU failed to extend its lead and instead was left defending it. Kelley made an important save in a one-on-one with Keira Healey to preserve Syracuse’s one-goal advantage at the end of the first.

The Orange continued to defend throughout the second period, killing two Boston University power plays and withstanding an onslaught of Terrier shots. However, with just over four minutes left in the period, SU finally caved. Yuhn’s equalizer at the 4:32 mark was promptly followed just a minute and a half later by a go-ahead goal from the Terriers’ top scorer, Lola Reid. At the end of the second period, the Orange fell behind, 2-1.

The third period began with more of the same. Less than two minutes in, Reid received a pass from Luisa Welcke and buried her second goal of the night to put Boston up 3-1.

“That’s been a little bit of a theme for us, is allowing teams to score in clusters,” Smith said. “That’s something that we’ve been talking about and focusing on is just how we can have that next-shift mentality and stop that momentum.”

Syracuse battled for a route back into the game throughout the final period, but came up empty each time it neared BU’s goal. The final goal was Maeve Kelly’s blast from the top of the right circle into the top left corner of SU’s net, extending the Terrier lead to three with eight minutes to play. SU outshot Boston 51-45 and had many chances to claw its way back, but couldn’t find the same consistency opponents did in the attack.

Despite struggles to find consistent scoring and reliable defense throughout the Orange’s six-game skid, Smith and her squad aren’t panicking as they near league play.

“We’re not worried, not at all,” Smith said. “This is a process for us. We feel like we’ve added a lot to our game in the last few weeks, we have conference play coming up next weekend, and it’s been our process the whole time to be ready to go once we get conference play. There’s no panic in our locker room.”

Published on October 25, 2024 at 10:00 pm

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