As Syracuse’s matchup against Rochester Institute of Technology wore on, Jetta Rackleff would turn around and look for the referees, complaining about something that was bothering her.

The RIT goalkeeper did it for the first time just 1:39 seconds into the game when a shot taken from just in front of the blue line by Syracuse defender Dakota Derrer hit off her chest and slowly slid into the back of the net. As the Orange bench celebrated it’s early 1-0 lead, Rackleff turned around, banged her stick against the goalposts and shook her head in a more nervous than angry manner.

Syracuse (11-12-3, 7-3-2 College Hockey America) played an aggressive and physical brand of hockey on Saturday in its 3-0 defeat of RIT (6-19-1, 2-9-1) on Saturday night at the Tennity Ice Pavilion, which may have pushed Rackleff to keep turning around.

After a disappointing 2-1 overtime loss in Friday’s matchup, SU came right out of the gates with tenacity and confidence on both ends of the ice that seemed to unerve their conference rivals.

“Regardless of who we were playing tonight, we better have come out with some energy,” head coach Paul Flanagan. “We just weren’t there last night mentally, so we were gonna respond against anybody tonight.”

Early in the first period, junior Heather Schwarz was in the corner right behind a Tiger skater. She swiftly lowered her shoulder and poked her stick in to steal the puck away. In the second period, a Tiger attacker had a breakaway opportunity with just defender Megan Quinn to beat before she’d have a clear shot on goal. But Quinn aggressively went in and managed to clear the puck away.

The pressure shown by SU’s defense was a huge reason why goalkeeper Jenn Gilligan picked up her fourth shutout of the year. Gilligan made one fantastic save late in the third period. It was RIT’s only really good shot attempt of the game – they had 14 total – and they only managed to get it on a 5-on-3 advantage after multiple Syracuse penalties.

On offense, Syracuse consistently sent players right in front of the goal. Most of saves made by Rackleff were followed up by a skirmish in front of the net. The referees were often positioning themselves to get between the Orange and Tigers when necessary. But when they weren’t doing that they were listening to Rackleff’s numerous complaints.

“I think their goalie, every whistle, she was acting like she had to adjust her mask and fix something. It’s just a stall tactic,” Flanagan said. “If there’s something wrong with your mask, get it fixed. She was doing that every whistle.”

With just over seven minutes left in the game, captain Nicole Ferrara got called for a penalty right in front of the net. After failing to convert on a scoring opportunity she seemed got bumped from behind and reacted by raising her hand into the RIT player’s facemask which drew the penalty. It was one of the seven penalties called on Syracuse.

“I think everyone in our league is like that,” Ferrara said, “we play them four times a year … every game against a CHA team is extra physical.”

Flanagan made sure to point that while he was impressed with the physicality his team showed, he did disagree with a lot of the penalties that were called – he was visibly upset with the referee after the one called on Ferrara, begging for an explanation – and attributed his team’s rising penalty counts over the past few games to the inconsistency shown by the CHA referees.

Both Schwarz and Derrer said that they knew RIT was one of the more physical teams coming into the game. Schwarz acknowledged that this was probably one of the Orange’s more physical games against the Tigers, and both of them said they knew they were getting under their opponents skin because they frequently felt the RIT players pushing them and calling then names after the whistle. Still, Syracuse knew that they wanted to be the stronger team.

“I feel like we didn’t want to be soft anymore,” Derrer said. “We wanted to be the tough team instead of playing against the tough team.”

Published on January 24, 2016 at 12:18 am

Contact Tomer: tdlanger@syr.edu | @tomer_langer