The No. 17/18 Boston University lacrosse team suffered its second straight loss Saturday afternoon at Nickerson Field against No. 8/9 Syracuse University, 17-11, to fall below .500 for the first time this season.
“Let’s be honest, we just played the No. 8, No. 9 team in the country,” said BU coach Liz Robertshaw. “They are there for a reason. They worked really hard to get where they are. I just think we need to continue playing our game and now focus on conference.”
The Terriers (5-6) got off to a quick two-goal lead within the first three minutes of the game. But Syracuse (6-3) would score two quick goals of its own to tie the game up.
The first half was dominated by offensive spurts for both teams as balls flew into the net.
BU had hope after senior attacker Traci Landy and freshman attacker Danielle Etrasco scored 44 seconds apart to give the team a 5-3 lead with 19 minutes left in the half, but the Orange shortly made a comeback.
Syracuse coach Gary Gait called a timeout after Etrasco’s goal, and that timeout proved to be crucial as his team regrouped and held the BU offense in check for the remainder of the half. The Orange finished the first half on a 7-1 run, taking a 10-6 lead into the intermission.
“I know that lacrosse is a game of runs, and like Liz prepared us, in the beginning of the game she said, “they can go on a run and we’re going to go on a run,’ and that is exactly what happened,” Landy said. “I have complete confidence in my team that it is not the end of the world when we go through a run.”
BU made a couple of runs in the second half, but it was not able to close the deficit to fewer than two goals. Syracuse would score the last three goals of the game to take home a comfortable win.
Turnovers in the midfield damaged any opportunity the Terriers had to lower the deficit.
“We had a couple quick turnovers and that’s something we discussed at halftime,” Robertshaw said. “You know whether it’s [junior midfielder] Corcoran [Downey] running it all the way down, which is great, but then taking a shot we didn’t want, I think that’s just hard.”
Landy led BU offensively with six goals, tying a career best. Senior attacker McKinley Curro tallied three goals and one assist and leads the Terriers in points with 35. Syracuse freshman Michelle Tumolo finished with three goals and two assists, and senior Christina Dove led the Orange with six goals. Four players on the Orange finished with four points or more on the afternoon.
“It is what I know I am capable of, but it means nothing when there is no W on the scoreboard,” Landy said of her six goals.
Saturday’s contest served as an opportunity for the Terriers to get revenge on the Orange for defeating them in first round of the NCAA tournament last season. Nine of the 11 goals scored by BU against Syracuse were made by seniors.
“This was just one of those games where the seniors wanted to step up,” Landy said. “We had a lot of bad blood from last year losing, but I think in the next games to pass you’ll see more underclassmen scoring, I don’t think it was anything against them, the seniors just wanted this game really bad.”
“They’ve been in our mind probably every single day we step on the field. I think it is a bummer that it didn’t turn out the way we wanted, but it’s a good way to get the team up. I think it is a good confidence booster.”
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
