With a little more than two minutes remaining Louisville forward Marigrace Ragsdale raced through the Syracuse defense to find herself one-on-one with Borg van der Velde. The goalie lunged at Ragsdale to take the ball out from under her, but the senior made easy work of the freshman, juking right and finishing to put the Cardinals ahead, 3-2.

Ragsdale dropped her stick and threw her hands in the air, racing over to her teammates for a hug.

No. 11 Syracuse (12-6, 2-4 Atlantic Coast Conference) fell in the first round of the ACC tournament for a second-straight season. No. 10 Louisville (12-6, 4-2) downed the Orange, 3-2, for the second win against SU on its home turf this season.

SU started out hot, and didn’t let up. Laura Hurff scored in the fifth minute to give SU the early lead. The Orange kept pounding. When the first half ran out, Syracuse led 1-0, and had outshot the Cardinals 7-2.

But, Louisville dominated in the second half. The host scored twice in the first six minutes of the second half before Carolin Hoffmann scored an equalizer. Despite the tie score, the Cardinals controlled possession and dominated the shot count. van der Velde played savior for as long as she could, saving five shots in the second half.

But the score remained tied until Ragsdale managed to beat the SU defense and take a 3-2 lead. Syracuse head coach Ange Bradley pulled van der Velde for an extra forward in a last-ditch effort to tie the game, but SU couldn’t get into the Louisville arc.

But the score remained tied until Ragsdale managed to beat the SU defense and take a commanding 3-2 lead with just two minutes to go.

With a first-round loss, the Orange is in danger of missing the NCAA tournament. The 18-team field is selected based on team RPI and coming into this game SU ranked 14th in the nation. The Orange ranks last in the ACC in RPI.

James Madison, Saint Joseph’s and Harvard rank 15th, 16th and 17th, respectively, in RPI. With each team playing a conference game tomorrow, wins by JMU and SJU could potentially bump SU down to 16, and a potential Ivy League title win for the Crimson Sunday could have the Orange on the outside looking in.

Published on November 2, 2017 at 7:35 pm

Contact Matt: mdliberm@syr.edu