GREENSBORO, N.C. — Alexis Peterson had done everything she could.

But after missing a free throw with 11.2 seconds left to effectively seal Syracuse’s fate, all she could do was put her hands on her head and walk down to the other end of the court.

Fifth-seeded Syracuse (21-9, 11-5 Atlantic Coast) couldn’t outscore No. 13 seed Wake Forest (13-19, 2-14) in its back-and-forth 85-79 loss in the second round of the ACC tournament on Thursday, but that wasn’t because of Peterson’s efforts. The sophomore scored a career-high 34 points on 12-of-17 shooting. Her two late 3-pointers gave Syracuse a shot to come back in the last minute, but her heroic performance couldn’t overcome a 34.6 percent shooting showing from the rest of the No. 22 SU players on the Greensboro Coliseum court.

“Alexis Peterson is what we like to call a Deacon killer,” WFU head coach Jenn Hoover said.

The sophomore guard scored a then-career-high 32 points against Wake Forest in January, and topped it on Thursday morning. Her scoring kept Syracuse afloat.

With the Orange down 41-40 coming off two straight Demon Deacon baskets, Peterson calmly hit a pull-up jumper. With the score tied at 46, Peterson missed a 3, then cut to the basket and scored off of a Briana Day offensive rebound.

“Cornelia (Fondren) did a great job of finding me early,” Peterson said. “Bria Day, Briana, Taylor (Ford), they all did a great job going to the boards hard. I thought it just left me open and I was able to make some shots.”

With guard Diamond Henderson out for the postseason after suffering a torn ACL a week ago, the scoring load will now have to be shouldered by Syracuse’s rotation, which lacks scoring depth.

On Thursday, Brianna Butler missed 13 of her first 14 shots. When Ford was 0-of-4 from 3 and Briana Day played only 13 minutes before fouling out, the scoring responsibility belonged almost solely to Peterson.

“She’s a great point guard, and you can tell she really controls the team,” Hoover said. “She’s the coach on the floor.

“She had 34, but the difference is that we still had 85 as a group.”

Published on March 5, 2015 at 3:42 pm

Contact Sam: sblum@syr.edu | @SamBlum3