Syracuse head coach Lisa Miller lay in bed the night before the Syracuse women’s lacrosse game on Saturday against Loyola, pondering a possible shift the Big East Conference’s balance of power.

Though Loyola is struggling this season, the normal perennial national title contender replaces Boston College in the Big East next year. The Greyhounds had defeated the Orange two consecutive years and Miller, SU’s head coach, wanted her team to deliver a message that future conference games would not be so one-sided.

Consider it sent.

No. 17 Syracuse survived a 30-minute scoring drought and three Greyhound comebacks to defeat Loyola, 11-9, in front of 276 at the Carrier Dome. SU junior attack Meghan O’Connell’s goal with 5:16 remaining broke a 9-9 tie and gave the Orange (8-2, 1-1 Big East) its sixth straight win.

‘We are not going to get pushed out of our role in the Big East as one of the better teams,’ Miller said.

More important for SU than asserting itself in the budding rivalry was getting the victory. Miller called the game a ‘must-win’ afterward because two other top 20 teams in the northeast, Hofstra and Boston University, already defeated Loyola (3-7) this season. A loss would have dealt a severe blow to SU’s hopes for an NCAA Tournament at-large bid.

Early on, the outcome did not appear in doubt. Just 12 minutes into the game, SU jumped to a 5-0 lead on goals by five different players. But then, both the offense and defense shut down. Loyola dominated the rest of the half, culminating in Australia native Kate McHarg’s three goals in the final 68 seconds to even the score, 5-5.

‘We were a little flat emotionally,’ Miller said. ‘The game on Tuesday (against Cornell) took a lot out of us. We talked about just going back to the game plan, getting a bounce (in our step) and going after it.’

SU responded after the break. Once the Orange found the back of the net, the flood gates opened like the beginning of the first half. Three goals in less than three minutes gave SU an 8-5 lead. But the relentless Greyhounds battled back to tie the game at 8-8, and then again at 9-9.

Finally, O’Connell’s third goal of the game gave SU the lead for good. It was the third straight game the junior tallied a hat trick.

‘The people behind (the net) know that as soon as Meghan’s stick is open, she is going to score,’ SU senior midfielder Courtney Palladino said. ‘The chemistry is there.’

Loyola took a page out of the Cornell playbook and called for an inspection of O’Connell’s stick after her final goal. Last Tuesday, Palladino and fellow senior midfielder Monica Joines were caught with illegal sticks – ones that held the ball when turned over. But O’Connell’s passed the test and a large roar went up in the crowd and on the SU sideline, as if to say ‘told-you-so.’

Other than O’Connell’s game-winner, the biggest goal of the game came from freshman midfielder Allison Furstenburg. She ended the frustration of SU’s longest scoring drought of the season when she gave the Orange a 6-5 lead with 20 minutes left. Though she said afterward she only concerned herself with not committing a turnover, the assertive one-on-one move she used exemplified her growing confidence.

O’Connell and Furstenburg’s increased efforts of late prove the Orange offer seven legitimate, and seemingly equal, scoring threats.

‘Today Loyola didn’t know who they were going to double-team because of where everyone was going,’ Palladino said.

But now there’s always next year for Loyola. Miller is pleased with the Big East’s new addition, noting that all the teams in the conference will benefit from the Greyhounds’ strength-of-schedule. Loyola left the Colonial Athletic Association after the 2002 season.

‘We’ve been lucky to join a conference,’ Loyola head coach Kerri O’Day said. ‘The Big East is strong. It’s great to be a part of.’

Though SU suffered lapses on both sides of the ball on Saturday, Miller will sleep well tonight knowing the Orange hold the bragging rights for the first conference game against the Greyhounds next year.

‘It was a sloppy game,’ Palladino said. ‘But we still came out on top.’

Published on April 9, 2005 at 12:00 pm