Syracuse surrenders season-high 9 goals in blowout loss to Mercyhurst

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For the first 14 minutes of the game, Syracuse outshot Mercyhurst 17-9. The Orange had six of those attempts on a power play, but they were unable to score on any of them.

In the 15th minute of the game, Mae Batherson was attempting to collect the puck in SU’s zone, but Liliane Perreault picked it off. Perreault skated behind the net and sent a pass in front of the net to Vanessa Upson. Upson missed the shot, but Sara Boucher picked up the rebound and scored as she fell down.

Boucher’s goal started an offensive performance for Mercyhurst (19-9-2, 9-4 College Hockey America) that saw it score nine goals against Syracuse (12-10-6, 10-4-1-1 CHA) on Friday. None of the nine goals came off the power play, as the Lakers scored all of them on even strength. The Orange haven’t allowed this many goals since 2018 when they lost 9-1 against then-No. 1 Wisconsin. While the 2018 loss was against the best team in the country, Friday’s defeat comes against a Mercyhurst team that SU had beaten earlier in the season. The blowout loss also came as the Orange are trying to hold onto the top spot in the CHA.

After Boucher scored the game’s first goal, she would score again less than three minutes later after Perreault slung the puck to the front of the net and the sophomore tipped the puck in. Not even a minute later, Emily Pinto tried a wrap around the net but missed.

But as the puck started to bounce near Arielle DeSmet’s right skate, Kristy Pidgeon forced it past DeSmet. Syracuse had allowed three goals in less than five minutes as it headed to the first intermission.

DeSmet was switched out at intermission for Allison Small, who would play the rest of the game. But the second period followed a similar script as the first with Marielle Parks scoring on a two-on-one breakaway not even two and a half minutes into the period. With the score 4-0, the Orange continued to surrender goals in small periods of time. Batherson once again had the puck picked from her, this time from Boucher, who finished off her hat trick with a backhand shot past Small.

By this point, the game was fully in the Lakers’ control. SU would register two shots for the next five minutes right before Chantal Ste-Croix had the puck fall right on her stick and fired a wrister that Small couldn’t stop. Even MU’s goaltender Ena Nystrøm tallied a secondary assist on the Lakers’ sixth goal.

The score was already daunting for the Orange heading into the third period. But again Mercyhurst scored three goals and Syracuse scored none. After having two assists in the first period, Perreault beat Small on a backhand shot in front of the net as SU kept conceding breakaway opportunities.

Perreault scored again three minutes later, finishing off her four-point night, tied with Boucher for the most points on the team for the game. Ste-Croix ended the onslaught with the ninth goal with less than a minute left in the game. While the Orange registered 50 shots (only 14 less than the Lakers on the day), none of them could get past Nystrøm as they were shut out in their first defeat in 2022.