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A Coco Vandiver green card gave Maryland all the advantage it needed. Tied 8-8 with the Terrapins in double overtime, Syracuse found itself down a player in a crucial spot.

Maryland’s Shaylan Ahearn fired a shot at SU goalie Delaney Sweitzer that missed wide, but the ensuing ground ball was picked up by Maisy Clevenger. The Terrapins worked the ball to Eloise Clevenger, who passed to Hannah Leubecker for the game-winning goal.

“I think Hannah Leubecker was someone we looked out for the entire game,” Sweitzer said. “She had an awesome couple of goals and it was just unfortunate that she was the one to make that final play, but we held them off for as long as we could.”

After a 3-0 second quarter brought No. 5 Syracuse (1-2, 0–0 Atlantic Coast Conference) back into the game, it battled in a back-and-forth second half but fell 9-8 to No. 9 Maryland (2-0, 0-0 Big Ten) in double overtime. The game came down to which team capitalized on its late scoring chances, and SU didn’t. After Natalie Smith won the opening draw control of overtime, Emma Ward fired a shot that was saved by Emily Sterling. The next time SU got the ball came late in the first overtime, when Smith committed a turnover.

Then, Vandiver’s foul led Maryland to seal the road win over SU — Syracuse’s first 1-2 start to a season since 2012.

“I thought today we were very disciplined (defensively),” Maryland head coach Cathy Reese said. “We helped when we needed to help, we slid when we needed to slide, we came up with loose balls and we gave Emily (Sterling) the shots that we know that she’s competent to save.”

After trailing 3-1 through one quarter, the Orange offense picked up momentum in the second quarter, creating more scoring opportunities and getting deep into Maryland’s zone. SU won 3-of-4 draw controls in the second quarter, giving its defense a break from the early onslaught by the Terrapins’ attack.

To start the second, Smith won the draw control and took the ball down to the Maryland defensive zone. From there, it took just one minute for Ward to connect with Emma Tyrrell for a score, which cut the deficit to 3-2.

With 80 seconds left in the second, Treanor called a timeout to set up a scoring chance for the Orange. SU set up its offense and Aiden Peduzzi was called for a yellow card, setting up Smith for a free-position chance. Smith beat Sterling with a low, bouncing shot from the 8-meter to tie the game at 3-3.

Maryland won the ensuing draw control but was called for another foul with nine seconds left. Ward got a free-position chance and this time, she snuck the shot past Sterling’s left side for Syracuse’s first lead of the game at 4-3. Treanor said the way Syracuse ended the first half gave it momentum heading into the second half.

To start the third, the SU offense picked up where it ended the half, as Olivia Adamson curled off the 12-meter off a pass from Ward and fired it into the back of the net, giving SU a 5-3 lead.

After nearly 23 minutes without a goal, Maryland finally broke through. Kori Edmondson scored back-to-back goals for the Terrapins, knotting the game at 5-5 midway through the third.

Syracuse responded by winning the draw control and taking the ball into Maryland’s end. The Terrapins’ defense slowed the Orange from an early shot, but late in the shot clock, Smith found space by the center of the 12-meter and rocketed the ball past Sterling to take the lead back.

Just a minute later, Maryland took the ball down into Syracuse’s defensive end and tied the game again. SU won the following draw control and Ward created space for a shot, but Sterling stepped up to stop the strike.

Maryland followed with a long possession, and Sweitzer stopped its first two shots before Edmondson gave the Terrapins the lead back at 7-6. The Orange responded on a Tyrrell dodge and strike, her second score of the game. In the final 10 seconds before the end of the third quarter, Maryland got a free-position chance but elected to not fire a shot, pulling the ball out into the offense as the clock wound to zero.

Syracuse was first to break the 7-7 tie in the final quarter, as Ward found Adamson for a goal with 9:30 left. The Orange won the next draw control, and a foul led to a free-position chance from Savannah Sweitzer, but her shot deflected off the crossbar.

Maryland’s Meghan Ball picked up the ground ball to start the Terrapins’ next possession, where they found another answer for SU. Eloise Clevenger, who is among the country’s assist leaders, found Leubecker for a goal, which tied the game at 8-8.

With under three minutes into play, the Maryland defense shut down the Syracuse attack forcing a shot clock violation. Ward worked the ball from X looking for passing options, but the Terrapins blanketed every look SU tried to create.

“I think (Maryland’s) defense played really well,” Treanor said. “They stuck to their game plan. They didn’t really change anything.”

The Syracuse offense went dry in the game’s final minutes, failing to convert late in the game. Meanwhile, Maryland increased its pressure on the offensive end but the SU defense refused to let up. Sweitzer stopped three Terrapins shots, and the game went to overtime deadlocked at 8-8 — where Leubecker clinched the Terrapins’ upset victory.

“I think we struggled to get into a flow in the first quarter and then we only had one goal in the fourth which is tough,” Treanor said.

Published on February 17, 2024 at 3:20 pm

Contact Timmy at: tswilcox@syr.edu | @TimmyWilcox32