Even though the Syracuse women’s ice hockey team put together what seemed like a dream home-opening weekend 14 days ago against Sacred Heart, Paul Flanagan was apprehensive with regard to one aspect of the Orange’s performance.

‘We were able to get by this weekend despite the penalties, but against better and more talented teams, we won’t,’ SU’s head coach Flanagan said two weeks ago.

And this past weekend, against nationally recognized conference foe Mercyhurst (6-4), penalties did indeed come back to haunt the squad.

Both Friday and Saturday, Mercyhurst put the game out of reach thanks to power play goals.Friday night, following a Megan Skelly goal, which was eerily similar to the shot she tallied to christen the year at Colgate, the Lakers tallied goals to tie the game and take the lead with only one minute separating them halfway through the second period.

The goals seemed to suck the life out of the Orange (3-8), yet an event that occurred approximately two minutes later truly took the wind out from under the sails of the team.

With every skate of each player touching the Syracuse half of the ice, and after a barrage of shots on net for Mercyhurst, the tiny puck ricocheted back into the Lakers half of the ice, slowly passing line after line and ultimately settling into the back of the net, the second goal of the night for the Orange.

The goal was an improbable one, as the Orange had a bit of luck go its way. However, as the horn sounded and the sparse crowd at the Onondaga County War Memorial erupted in elation as the quartet of referees determined that the goal wouldn’t stand, seeing that the Kylie Klassen of the Orange had committed a hooking penalty prior to the goal.

So, yet again, a penalty cost the Orange a goal, the third time in fewer than five minutes of action on the ice.

The referees’ decision was a disputed one, seeing that the game was physical and the momentum drastically changed.

‘I thought it was bull,’ SU goalie Lucy Schoedel said. ‘Look in the rulebooks, they shouldn’t have ruled that off. It was a real fluky goal, but it could have changed the momentum of the game.’

Fewer than 24 hours later, Saturday afternoon, another couple of power play goals propelled the Lakers to victory.With about seven minutes remaining in the first period, the Lakers tallied its second goal of the game, as Meghan Agosta sent a shot past Schoedel.

Then right as the second period began, the Orange’s Kelly Dimmen was called for a hooking penalty. Merely seconds later, the Lakers put the game out of reach, thanks to a Hayley McMeekin goal.

Flanagan harped on the fact that the Orange put itself in poor situations when it began to tire.

‘Five or six minutes left in the second period on Friday, we started to show signs of running out of gas,’ Flanagan said. ‘Our fitness has to get better, that’s when we started making mistakes defensively and committing penalties.

‘We have to make good decisions when we get tired. It’s tough to go blow by blow with a team like that for 60 minutes.’

Considering the performance of the Orange this past weekend, Flanagan believed the team did play well at times, especially Friday.

‘On Friday I think that we probably played as a group as well as we have played all year,’ Flanagan said. ‘We hadn’t played a team that good in four weeks. They have two girls right off of the Canadian national team, and we held them off of the board for a while, but sooner or later they are going to break through.’

Syracuse sophomore and former Mercyhurst Laker Cheyenne Bojeski agreed with Flanagan to an extent, touching on the fact that the Orange showed glimpses of a high-level of hockey.

‘We had a lot of good bursts of energy, but we need to keep it up for 60 minutes or else the opponent will capitalize,’ Bojeski said.

Moving forward after two losses this weekend, the Orange will travel to Detroit to play another conference foe in Wayne State next weekend. Seeing that penalties have hindered the squad thus far this year, the team is reverting back to the basics in order to resolve these problems.

‘We are trying to get back to the fundamentals, trying to get everybody to refocus, Bojeski said. ‘We thought that we had their systems down but apparently we didn’t, so that’s something we are going to work on.’

aolivero@syr.edu

Published on November 16, 2008 at 12:00 pm