Selena Lasota ran up field with the ball following a Syracuse foul on Sunday. The Orange jumped out to a three-goal lead in the first three minutes, and the leading goal scorer for then-No. 5 Northwestern was trying to sneak in a rapid counter-attack score. She seemed to have a wide-open path to the goal, but then the green turn was filled with white jerseys and grey sticks.

The suddenly flustered Wildcat tried to lob a pass toward a teammate up ahead, but she overthrew her badly and the ball rolled out of bounds. And just like that, the Orange regained possession.

“I think they’re a very physical team and they definitely work on being aggressive in the style of defense they play,” Kelly Amonte Hiller, Northwestern’s head coach, said after SU beat her team 16-12.

With All-Americans and Tewaaraton award watch lists members Kayla Treanor and Halle Majorana, it’s easy to focus on Syracuse’s potent offense. But defense has arguably been the No. 2 Orange’s (5-0) backbone this year, and it will again be key against No. 3 Florida’s (4-0) high-powered offense at noon in the Carrier Dome on Tuesday. The Gators have scored 14.75 goals per game, which ranks 12th in the nation heading into the matchup.

The Orange plays a zone defense predicated on pressuring its opponent’s attack. If there’s not a clear opportunity, the defenders don’t always risk their position to try and intercept the ball. The unit just wants to make sure the other team always know that it’s there.

“We want to put a lot of pressure on the offense, kind of chaos is all we want,” redshirt senior defender Mallory Vehar said, “we don’t want people to get comfortable.”

On Feb. 21, Syracuse played two games in one day against Wagner at noon and Marist at night. The starting defensive line only played the first half of each game. Wagner only scored two goals in the half. Marist tallied just one.

Syracuse returned its entire starting defensive group form last year, with no player younger than a junior as part of that group.

“We’re not starting from scratch,” SU head coach Gary Gait said. “We’re just elevating their knowledge and understanding of what we’re trying to get done.”

Gait and several Orange players also credited new goalie Allie Murray for its goals against average of 6.8, which is currently the 14th best mark in the country. Murray’s play as a goalie mirrors that of the defenders. She often steps well out of the goal circle in order to fight for ground balls or to take away shooting angles away from players. Gait said the Notre Dame transfer’s style of play is exactly the kind of approach he wants from a goalie anchoring this defense.

The same physicality also earned Syracuse a whopping 53 fouls against Northwestern. A week earlier, when the Orange faced Marist, SU was called for 39 fouls while the Red Foxes were called for just eight.

But Syracuse is unapologetic about its physicality. After the Marist game, Majorana and Treanor started laughing when they saw the discrepancy in foul calls. After the Northwestern game, Gait said that it didn’t matter that his team was called for so many fouls, that it was just the flow of the game. Junior defender Haley McDonnell even thinks that it’s a key part of the unit’s success.

And against a strong offensive team like the Gators, the Orange is confident it will be able to make the Florida attacks uncomfortable.

“We don’t have any elaborate plans,” McDonnell said. “We stick to what we know and we’re good at that.”

Published on February 29, 2016 at 8:00 pm

Contact Tomer: tdlanger@syr.edu | @tomer_langer