TOWSON, Md. — The game clock had hit zero and Alyssa Murray turned to Kayla Treanor at midfield. She walked over slowly and hugged her.

Around them, the Maryland bench players that had been jumping and screaming for the game’s final minute rushed to hug their teammates. The Syracuse bench players solemnly huddled next to Kelsey Richardson in goal.

The sea of Maryland fans in the stands celebrated while music blared throughout the stadium.

But Treanor and Murray didn’t move an inch.

“We just told each other how much we love playing with each other,” Murray said, fighting back more of the tears that had already been streaming down her face. “I know that we all left everything out on the field.”

It was a record-breaking season for No. 2-seed Syracuse (22-3, 6-1 Atlantic Coast), the best in program history. The Orange beat 10 teams in the Top 10. Coming into Sunday night’s NCAA championship, the only blemishes on a virtually perfect season were two losses to top-seeded Maryland (23-1, 6-1) — which also defeated the Orange in last year’s final four.

In this year’s national title game, the only team that could beat Syracuse did, in a 15-12, back-and-forth battle between the country’s top two teams.

“It’s just frustrating anytime you lose,” SU head coach Gary Gait said. “You pour your heart into it as a player, coach, everything. You hope for a different outcome. It just wasn’t our day.”

Syracuse faced an uphill battle all night.

On the game’s first possession, UMD’s Erin Collins cut toward the right of the goal, and found Kristen Lamon, wide open outside the crease. Lamon fired the shot in, then fell to the ground as her teammates gathered around her. With the game 43 seconds old, Maryland led.

And 3:37 after that, the lead had reached 5-0. Each goal was the same. A draw control. One shot, a finish, followed by a roar from the partisan Maryland crowd while the Terrapins’ offense celebrated.

Syracuse had yet to gather possession, but the game was headed in a familiar direction.

“We were fired up and we were ready to go,” Maryland midfielder Taylor Cummings said. “We didn’t want to play with fear.”

But once the Orange finally gained possession, the momentum shifted. Murray got the ball in her stick for the first time. The deficit was large and there was a lot of work to do, but she calmly cradled, surveying the defense.

She had an offense to run.

On the first SU possession, Treanor wrapped a shot around the cage to get one of the goals back. Fifteen minutes later it was Murray scoring unassisted on a drive to the right of the goal to make it 5-4.

“We get ourselves back in the game,” Gait said. “You know if you could do it again, you would hope you’d get a different start.”

Maryland made its runs. And Syracuse always found an answer. All season, the Orange withstood every run.

When the Orange saw a 6-1 lead to Albany get all but erased, SU closed the door in the final minutes. When Loyola had a three-goal lead with fewer than five minutes to go, Syracuse rallied to win in overtime. When Boston College shut down Tewaaraton Award finalists Treanor and Murray, other SU players stepped up to pick up the offensive load.

Syracuse had been tested many times this season, but always found a way — except against Maryland. Then, there was nothing the Orange could do.

“It’s kind of frustrating that we just lost to Maryland three times,” senior midfielder Katie Webster said. “But just the fact that we beat everybody else is great.”

Maryland made the score 15-8 with 11:02 to play. It capped off a 6-1 second-half run. But the Orange still had life.

Webster netted two of her three goals to start the rally. Just 1:20 later, Murray raised her arms in celebration after bouncing a shot past Maryland goalie Abbey Clipp. A seven-goal deficit had become 15-12 with 4:21 to go.

But the Syracuse punches finally ran out just moments later. After controlling the draw, Kelly Cross threw the ball away.

Maryland picked it up, and Syracuse wouldn’t get the ball back on offense the rest of the night.

“It’s a game of runs,” Gait said. “And unfortunately their runs were a little too large and too many at once.“

As the last seconds ticked off the clock, the Maryland bench players giddily waited to be set loose by the final whistle. But the Syracuse players on the field continued to play lockdown defense.

The game was over in almost every sense, but still, the Orange persisted through the end of its historic season.

“I have no regrets about the way I played,” Murray said. “I have no regrets about the way my teammates played.

“Unfortunately, we just ran out of time.”

Published on May 25, 2014 at 10:58 pm

Contact Sam: sblum@syr.edu | @SamBlum3