The Syracuse women’s lacrosse team had the simplest of objectives during the last three minutes of Saturday’s game against Connecticut. The Orange didn’t need another goal and wasn’t really thinking about preventing one either.

All SU wanted to do was hold on to the ball.

Leading by five with 15 minutes left, the Huskies furiously closed to one with more than three minutes remaining. A team SU never lost to in seven all-time meetings suddenly presented the Orange with the possibility of dropping to a devastating 0-2 record in the Big East.

On the ensuing draw a UConn player was whistled for a foul, turning the ball over to Syracuse.

The Huskies never got it back. Syracuse beat the Huskies, 13-12, in Storrs, Conn., on Saturday.

Amidst swarming double- and triple-teams, SU managed to keep possession in the UConn end of the field for the rest of the game. Once several Huskies converged on one Orange player in particular, she found the player left open by the double- or triple-team.

‘Watching our attack do that was amazing,’ said SU midfielder Melissa Pearsall. ‘Everyone had so much composure.’

For the most part at least. There were a few unsettling moments at the end. Several times a check jarred the ball loose or an errant pass let the ball roll free. But the Orange quickly corralled the ball.

One player in particular that took over on the final possession was senior attack Caitlyn Dragon. She noticed some jitters amongst several of her teammates and decided to take matters into her own hands.

‘She said, ‘give me the ball and get out of my way,” said SU head coach Lisa Miller. ‘She killed (UConn’s) momentum.’

Dragon also scored three points, netting two goals and notching one assist. Miller said Dragon, who continues to be the surprise team leader in points, did not make a mistake the entire game.

The team as a whole, however, was a different story.

‘We should never have been in that position to begin with,’ Miller said of the finish. ‘We were up by five goals and then we started to do things that were, ‘oh, boy, where did that come from?’

‘If we had played well for 60 minutes, we could have beaten them by five or six goals.’

SU jumped out to a 5-1 lead but each team went on spurts. Pearsall said SU goalie Jen Kasel’s play early in the game also could have been the difference.

‘Jen had some really good saves in the first half that kept us in there,’ Pearsall said. ‘On defense we didn’t get organized as quickly as we should have at times, but our attack put the ball away when we needed it.’

Sophomore midfielder Jill DePetris also turned in an outstanding performance. Not only was she integral in playing keep-away at the end, her free-position goal with 3:41 left that made the score 13-11 proved to be the winning margin. That goal stemmed the tide of a four-goal UConn spurt. Miller said DePetris hardly made a mistake either.

Senior Monica Joines led SU in the scoring column with three goals. Courtney Palladino, another senior midfielder, pitched in two goals, her first multi-goal game of the season.

The game ended a four-game road stretch for SU. After going 3-1 away from the Carrier Dome, the Orange plays three straight at home, beginning tomorrow night against Brown.

Miller said afterward that UConn may have missed its chance to finally notch a victory against SU, noting the Huskies’ 12 seniors to the Orange’s three of Dragon, Joines and Palladino.

‘If (the Huskies) were going to beat us,’ Miller said, ‘they should have beaten us this year.’

Published on March 27, 2005 at 12:00 pm