Alysha Burriss and Lindsay Eastwood moved in unison, advancing on the Robert Morris goal on the left and middle parts of the zone. Eastwood, on RMU goalie Elijah Milne-Price’s stick side, shuffled the puck toward Burriss, who had stationed herself on the other side of the goal. After a small deflection, the puck appeared to almost pause in the crease of the goal, away from Milne-Price.

Burriss noticed and quickly attempted a wrist shot, but the puck didn’t move. She’d underestimated where it was, and her stick instead hit the ground in front of the puck and bounced over it. Milne-Price recovered from her mistaken lunge, falling on the puck to stop the Orange’s scoring threat. It was the first shot attempt of the game, and SU’s best look of the night, but it wasn’t the last time Syracuse would fail to execute.

Syracuse (12-19-2, 11-7-1 College Hockey America) was shutout for the ninth time this year, falling to No. 9 Robert Morris (19-7-4, 13-3-3), 5-0, on Friday at Tennity Ice Pavilion. The first period began with Burriss’ failed attempt and ended with a 16-3 advantage in shots on goal for the Orange, but by the end of the first 20 minutes SU found itself trailing, 1-0. Syracuse couldn’t get over its missed opportunities in the first period, leading to a second period in which the Colonials blew the game open thanks to SU mistakes.

After dominating puck control in the first, the Orange was outshot 13-5 in the second and was called for four penalties. The worst change in play was SU’s lethargic attitude with the puck in the second period, as the Orange committed turnover after turnover to lead to RMU breakaways.

“We stopped battling. We just weren’t battling,” head coach Paul Flanagan said. “Turnovers, getting to loose pucks, to have puck position, we just weren’t there.”

Syracuse appeared to be unfazed by its shortcomings early in the second, as the Orange put two shots on goal in the opening few minutes. It looked as if SU would maintain its aggressiveness on offense, but it wasn’t to be. With 10:30 left in the period, Eastwood was called for high-sticking and the Colonials were given a power play.

The Orange stopped the two-minute man-up opportunity, but just one second after the return to full strength, RMU scored. Syracuse rotated too early when the power play came to an end to accommodate its fifth defender, leading to the goal. Two minutes later the Colonials scored again, this time after an SU defender was broken down and skated by. RMU’s original shot was stopped, but the infiltration by the first shot allowed for a rebound opportunity to be converted.

“(We need to) just focus on the little details,” senior Stephanie Grossi said, “have passion when we come out on the ice and be disciplined with our penalties.”

A Grossi interference penalty gave RMU a power-play opportunity with 5:42 left in the period, and the Colonials went on the attack. Thirty-four seconds after the penalty was called, Robert Morris had a shot deflect off the post by SU goalie Abbey Miller’s glove. Eight seconds later, Miller and Jessica DiGirolamo teamed up to block another shot that had been hit into the air.

But the Orange defense couldn’t hold the Colonials for long, and with 4:02 remaining in the second period RMU finally snuck a shot by Miller’s glove into the back of the net. Following the goal, Miller skated towards the side of the rink, defeated. Instead of slamming her stick against the boards or yelling, she sunk into a crouch, silent. She seemed to represent the team as a whole in its frustration with the period.

“Like we always talk about, we want to get on the board first,” forward Brooke Avery said. “So when we don’t, it’s a tough battle for us to win. I think we got too down on ourselves after that, and it was just downhill from there.”

Avery was responsible for two of the seven SU penalties on the night, mistakes that led to two power-play goals during the game for the Colonials. The second score came during the third period, against freshman Edith D’Astous-Moreau. The freshman came into the game at the start of the period to replace Miller but didn’t fare much better against the RMU offense.

A body-checking penalty was called on Savannah Rennie and the Orange almost killed the power play, but for the third consecutive period the Colonials scored at the end of the man-up advantage. This time, the goal came after an SU turnover gave Robert Morris a breakaway opportunity without any Orange defenders to stop it.

With 1:10 left in the game and the outcome already decided, Emma Polaski was called for SU’s seventh penalty. After the referee’s whistle blew, Milne-Price skated to the bench for a brief break. An empty net in front of her, Polaski decided to shoot from just past center ice. Her shot looked to be on target, but deflected harmlessly off the post. It was that kind of night for the Orange.

“We didn’t execute, didn’t do the things we were supposed to do,” Flanagan said. “We’ve got to put that in the back of our minds, we’ve got to file it. We’ve got to pick our heads up and come in tomorrow, get ourselves on track.”

Published on February 23, 2018 at 10:57 pm

Contact Eric: erblack@syr.edu | @esblack34