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With just two minutes left in the first half, graduate student forward Chelsea Domond broke past two defenders in the open field to advance into the penalty box. The two defenders seemed to have caught up to the speeding Domond until she put on the brakes and left them both stumbling. Domond planted her right foot in the ground, firing a shot past a diving Lily Morgan as Syracuse took a 2-0 lead that it wouldn’t relinquish.

Despite the 2-1 win over Merrimack College (1-4-1, 0-0 Northeast), Syracuse (5-1-0, 0-0 Atlantic Coast) couldn’t escape missed opportunities on offense that have plagued them continuously throughout the young season. It got off 27 shots (16 on goal) to Merrimack’s 11 shots (five on goal). In their four-match winning streak, the Orange have outshot opponents by 101 to 28. Yet, Syracuse has only outscored its opponents by eight goals in those matches.

The Warriors were playing a 4-4-2 all night that was “essentially an eight with two up front,” SU head coach Nicky Adams said. Throughout the 90 minutes, Merrimack was pressuring the ball heavily and leaving just two defenders back.

That focused strategy along with SU’s speedy forwards, made Syracuse breakaways a common occurrence on Sunday. Adams said the team did well breaking Merrimack’s heavy pressure, but couldn’t capitalize near the goal. They scored just twice on 27 shots. 

“There is an enormous gap [in the defense] and I thought we did fine breaking the pressure,” Adams said. “But what we did after the pressure was almost like, ‘Oh my God, I have so much time. What do I do now?’ So we got to just learn to calm down and play a bit more simple instead of forcing it in transition.”

The match was physical throughout, but it started to become chippy toward the end. With less than two minutes to go, a scuffle broke out between the two teams after a hard foul on Merrimack’s Ella Cormier. Syracuse’s Pauline Machtens tried to make sure the two teams separated when Cormier recoiled and said, “Don’t touch me.” Machtens backed off and play resumed without further incident.

SU had multiple stretches of missed offensive opportunities, including an 11-minute span where it missed seven shots. That run started with a missed breakaway from Chelsea Domond. With leverage on the right side, Domond juked inside and sent a lefty shot toward Morgan with a defender closing in. She missed her mark high and the ball skipped toward the goal where it was scooped up easily. From there, three more SU players missed six more shots.

The close chances continued into the 66th minute, where Gianna Savella hit a shot off a defender before Machtens got the rebound and fired high to miss the second shot for SU in the span of seven seconds. The Warriors took possession and SU didn’t score for the remainder of the match.  

But the Orange still held on to the victory after they took the lead in the seventh minute. Koby Commandant recognized a man-mark on Erin Flurey and took the opportunity to suck in the defense. She made a cut to find an opening near the corner of the penalty box where she received a pass from Kate Murphy. Then she sent a high cross to a crashing Ashley Rauch, who kicked the ball on the volley into the right goalpost where it rolled down and into the back of the net. 

“Erin [Flurey] was being man-marked pretty much the whole time on the left side, so I kind of took the opportunity there, and she did a really good job of pulling her inside,” Commandant said. “So I went wide and Murphy played a great ball to me and from there I just kind of cut inside and found [Rauch] on the far post and she made a great finish.”

Published on September 4, 2022 at 10:18 pm

Contact Wyatt: wbmiller@syr.edu