Syracuse wins 1st home game since Oct. 14, defeats Robert Morris 2-1
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Rachel Teslak lunged to her knees to block a shot. A few seconds later, another puck came flying her way, but this time she intercepted it.
“As soon as I saw that puck turnover, it was like, I’m just gonna get down the ice as fast as I can,” SU forward Sarah Thompson said. “And I was looking back, like praying to God, if she doesn’t get it out, we’re in trouble.”
Just a few seconds later, Thompson received a pass from Teslak at the red line and from there it was all open ice. With just under 11 minutes left in the third, the senior forward slotted a short-handed goal past Robert Morris’s Maggie Hatch to give Syracuse a 2-1 lead.
A short-handed and a power play goal was enough for Syracuse (6-20-2, 3-10-1 College Hockey America) to get past Robert Morris (10-16-0, 7-7-0 CHA) 2-1. It was one of Syracuse’s best offensive games all season, outshooting Robert Morris 44-27 on goal. Now the Orange sit just four points out of a playoff spot with six games to play in the regular season.
Syracuse established its offense right off the bat. One of its biggest breaks of the whole game came just four minutes into the game when Robert Morris’s Morgan Giannone got called for tripping.
From there the orange set up their offense. One player ran the offense from the middle of the blue line as Syracuse sent one player on the right and left board near the top of the faceoff circles.
Second-chance shots fueled the Syracuse offense throughout the period. With the set-up offense, the Orange had two players near the net for most of their offensive possessions.
“As a team we just stuck to our offensive system and we were moving our feet, playing as a unit and not getting stuck on an island anywhere,” SU’s Tatum White said.
As the puck went between the three players, Syracuse almost always had an open player. The Orange put shot after shot on net from past the faceoff circles.
Five and a half minutes into the game, it worked. With Kailey Langefels at the blue line, she passed the puck to Thompson on the right side. Thompson immediately passed it to Maya D’Arcy who was back on the red line. After D’Arcy fired a puck to the crease, Charlotte Hallett tipped it out to Nea Tervonen. A shot from the freshman went wide, but Thompson was waiting and tipped it in from the right side to give Syracuse an early lead.
“It didn’t feel like our power play really gave us what we needed yesterday so we had some video for them this morning and talked through some things and they did a great job of meeting that challenge,” Syracuse head coach Britni Smith said after the game.
The Orange had another skater advantage when Giannone got called for another penalty. But the Colonials defended better on their second penalty kill.
While the Colonials kept Syraucse off the scoreboard for the rest of the period, the Orange looked dominant on offense.
The Colonials’ best chances came in the last few minutes of the period. Starting with a penalty on Syracuse’s Kambel Beacom, RMU worked closer and closer to the net. But with 18.5 seconds left in the period, Syracuse got one final clear, and finished the period on top.
To start the second period. Heidi Knoll fired a shot off the left post of the goal and then had a breakaway, but the Orange couldn’t convert. In the second period alone, Syracuse put 16 shots on goal, compared to just nine for Robert Morris.
The fast break worked especially well. The Colonials had primarily short possessions, and the Orange turned many turnovers into fastbreaks.
“That was something we really focused on is (being) clean in transition,” Smith said.
Everything seemed to be working for Syracuse until 3:44 left in the second period. Allyson Hebert took the puck down the right side of Robert Morris’s offensive-zone. When she reached the face-off circle, she fired a puck on net, and in front of the goal Calli Arnold tipped it in to tie the game.
The Colonials tried to turn this into momentum, but Syracuse goalie Allie Kelley was up to the task. With her last save of the period, she set the Syracuse single-season save record with 929, setting up a tie game heading into the third.
“We’ve been in this position before so you know, it was nothing new,” Thompson said. “We didn’t panic about it.”
The opening minutes of the period looked the most even. Each team struggled to gain momentum as the team traded possession back and forth. The Colonials, who finished the day 0-for-2 on the power play, could not capitalize on a holding call against Haley Trudeau with 12:03 left in the period. Instead, it was Syracuse who took advantage, scoring the short-handed goal on that penalty.
The Orange did not slow down offensively, controlling the pace for much of the final ten minutes. WIth just under a minute left, Robert Morris and Syracuse called back-to-back timeouts.
“(Our timeout) was just making sure everyone knows where they’ve got to be in their routes and making sure that we play that face off effectively,” Thompson said.
The Colonials ended up taking five shots in the final minute of play. But four saves by Kelley and one wide shot gave Syracuse its first home win since Oct. 14.
“Those were definitely two points we needed today,” White said. “And we knew that so the momentum going into next weekend is obviously big for us getting a win today. It was a huge team win.”
