Albany’s Kate Fontana tried to shoot, but Syracuse’s Ashley Pike blocked all of her lanes. Fontana passed to Nikki Donohue, but the Orange’s Melissa Pearsall blanketed her. Donohue then passed to Sarah Spillett, who took a turn at cutting toward the cage, but SU’s Chelsea Strodel slapped the ball out of her stick. SU gained possession.

This early second-half sequence played out over and over throughout the Syracuse women’s lacrosse team’s 17-4 win over Albany on Sunday at the Carrier Dome. SU’s defense was expected to struggle early in the season due to its youth, but the Orange defense suffocated the Great Danes to the point that all shots, not just those on goal, were few and far between.

It wasn’t as if Albany didn’t have any chances. Despite the lopsided result, attack zone possession time was relatively equal because the teams split on draws. Yet SU outshot Albany, 42-14.

Many Albany possessions included a minute’s worth of passes in a fruitless search to find an opening. Once an Albany player finally attempted to drive to the cage and shoot, at least two SU players converged on her, forcing her to step back and reset or forcing her to turn the ball over.

The defensive dominance was even greater than the final score suggests. Two of Albany’s goals came in the last four minutes of the game off SU backup goalie Bethel Steele. Starting goalie Jen Kasel only faced seven shots on goal in the first 50 minutes, saving five of them.

‘We wanted to send a message that we were going to play tough from the (opening) whistle,’ said Pearsall, a sophomore defensive midfielder. ‘We were really aggressive, pressured a lot and it seemed like they couldn’t handle it.’

‘Pearsall had a great game,’ said SU coach Lisa Miller. ‘She was all over the place – guarding shots, she had 6 or 7 groundballs, getting takeaways, directing traffic. She played really well.’

The defense’s other veteran shined as well. This season, sophomore defensive midfielder Ashley Pike assumes Monica Joines’ responsibility of guarding the opposing team’s top player. Yesterday, Pike held Fontana scoreless, allowing her only three shots.

Pearsall and Pike, the defense’s returning starters, are the unit’s leaders after the departure of SU’s two top defenders from a year ago. Jacquelyn Walker graduated and Stephanie Walker left school for personal reasons after her sophomore year.

Sophomore Chelsea Strodel and freshman Stephanie Bissett started the first games of their careers Sunday. Freshmen Christina Gibson and Shannon Brusche also saw plenty of playing time.

Miller attributed the defense’s strong performance to its cohesiveness, a hard element to attain for such a young group playing together for the first time.

‘If you can’t count on somebody helping you or you don’t know the slide is going to be there, it makes you timid,’ Miller said. ‘The more you can count on your teammates, the more aggressive you can be. I think we did a really good job of backing each other up.’

But SU knows its defensive play is all relative. Albany may be the weakest opponent, both offensively and defensively, that SU faces all season.

‘Even though we were so aggressive, for a top five team, we need to be even more aggressive, and send the message even earlier,’ Pearsall said.

Funny she happened to be so specific with that ranking. The Orange has one last tune-up Wednesday against Binghamton before No. 1 Virginia visits the Carrier Dome on Saturday.

Published on February 26, 2005 at 12:00 pm