ITHACA, N.Y. – After a Cornell timeout, Syracuse grouped together and jogged over to the sidelines. Some slouched as they ran and many players remained devoid of emotion.

Bri Stahrr was the one outlier. She skipped off the Syracuse sideline, passed a few offensive players and found fellow-goalie Asa Goldstock, who was walking in the middle of the pack. The junior and sophomore quietly embraced, and Goldstock continued her walk to the sideline. Enjoying one of the best statistical performances of her career, she seemed hardly excited.

On the other side of the field, attack Emily Hawryschuk was enjoying a similar output. But sloppy play, including 16 turnovers, masked season-best individual performances from both Goldstock (16 saves) and Hawryschuk (five goals) as Syracuse (6-2, 0-1 Atlantic Coast) and Cornell (4-3, 1-1 Ivy League) struggled to get anything going for much of the game in the Orange’s 14-7 win. Though SU doubled the Big Red on the scoreboard, its inability to hold onto the ball held the game closer for longer than necessary.

“It got sloppy. I think it got sloppy both ways,” SU head coach Gary Gait said. “I thought the second half was probably our worst half for turnovers this year.”

Short periods of time brought big runs from the SU offense, but for most of the game, the Orange couldn’t get anything going. On one of Goldstock’s saves, the sophomore lofted the ball to an SU player cutting toward the midfield. Syracuse had a breakaway opportunity after Ella Simkins collected the ball on a lob pass from the SU player at midfield, but as she took her first step toward the net, the ball popped out of her stick.

Time and time again, the Orange mishandled, overshot and timed poorly their pursuits of the ball. It seemed frustrated. The dominant team as it showed in the second half, the constant turnovers and lack of possessions, attack Nicole Levy said, prevented the offense from reaching the potential its shown all year as the NCAA-leading attack.

“It was 8-5 at one point,” Goldstock said. “We really didn’t want that to define the game.”

During Syracuse’s momentum-setting runs, it didn’t. Hawryschuk scored three goals in the second half as a part of Syracuse’s 6-2 run to end the game. Before that, no one could break the scoreboard. For a bit more than 13 minutes, the half was scoreless. But, as was true the entire game, where the Orange struggled, the Big Red fell even lower.

When the Orange found the back of the net, the Big Red continued to cough up the ball. It was a dominant second-half performance for Syracuse, but one that was surrounded by a multitude of mistakes that Cornell couldn’t take advantage of.

“At halftime, we knew what the score was, but we knew our potential to play in the second half,” Hawryschuk said of the close halftime score. “It wasn’t like we were surprised or anything, but we just continued to play our game, focus and just put up points.”

At times, the lull of the game would get the best of SU. The Orange often mimicked the Big Red’s struggles on the offensive end.

Cornell, which had 12 turnovers of its own, couldn’t find the mark all game. After Syracuse’s loss to Maryland, Gait said some of the Orange’s shots should be recognized as turnovers as well. For as much as the Cornell offense attacked, it sailed an additional 10 shots way out of reach of the goal.

On another poor Syracuse sequence, Goldstock ran out to the 50-yard line and lofted a clear to an SU player that was mishandled in tight space. But Mia DiBello’s momentum sent her crashing into the Cornell player, who collected the ball. Though the play resulted in a foul for SU, it allowed Goldstock to get set back in her position and prevented a possible breakaway opportunity for Cornell.

Syracuse struggled, but Cornell just did it for longer.

“We knew that we would have that, go on a run,” Levy said. “For some reason this year we’ve been a bit of a second-half team. Which isn’t a bad thing.”

Published on March 20, 2018 at 8:44 pm

Contact Michael: mmcclear@syr.edu | @MikeJMcCleary