Quirine Comans’ overtime goal propels No. 13 Syracuse over No. 18 James Madison
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Joy Harmann rocketed a shot inside the penalty circle, giving Syracuse the chance to take its first overtime win of the season. James Madison goalkeeper Brandelynn Heinbaugh made an initial save, but the ball bounced out back into the front of the circle. Quirine Comans collected the rebound and put the ball past Heinbaugh, scoring her team-leading tenth goal of the year.
No. 13 Syracuse (9-2, 2-1 Atlantic Coast) came into this road game after defeating No. 16 Boston College 3-0 last Friday. But against James Madison (7-4) both teams got off to a slow start in this contest, with the best chance of the first period coming off a SU penalty corner. As the game progressed, two teams started getting shots off much more, combining for 22 attempts in the second half and overtime, eventually leading to goals. The consistent pressure from SU finally gave Comans a chance in overtime to defeat the Dukes.
The Orange grabbed successive corners early in the game, but did not get a shot off on the first attempt. The first corner didn’t lead to an attempt, and Laura Graziosi had her shot blocked on the second one.
Unlike Syracuse, James Madison took advantage of a penalty corner 10 minutes into the second quarter. A rebound off of the corner gave Diede Remijnse an opportunity to shoot, and the Dukes took a 1-0 lead. Syracuse did not respond and couldn’t generate any offense, making it only the third time this year that the Orange went into the half trailing.
SU came out of halftime having three corners in the span of twenty seconds. On the first one, Eefke van den Nieuwenhof got a shot off, but Heinbaugh brushed the ball away. On the next two corners, the Orange couldn’t set up a shot, and then van den Nieuwenhof had her second shot blocked by a JMU defender.
Syracuse kept the offensive pressure going all third quarter, accumulating five total shots. With twelve seconds left in that period, SU finally leveled it. Sabine Eijnden received a pass off a corner from Eefke van den Nieuwenhof and put it home. It was Eijnden’s third goal of the year and her first in a month.
The two teams remained at one apiece as neither could get a shot past Heinbaugh or SU’s Brooke Borzymowski. With forty seconds left in the game, Syracuse was under heavy offensive pressure as JMU had two corners. But the Orange stopped both and after the second, the ball continued to bounce around, with SU defenders blocking two shots. With twenty seconds to go, JMU had another penalty corner. This time, Borzymowski made the save to send the game into overtime, where Comans’ goal ended it quickly.