Syracuse loses on last-second goal to undefeated Boston College, 13-12
Josh Shub-Seltzer | Staff Photographer
With 19 seconds to go, Syracuse had to make one last stop to preserve a chance at its largest win of the season. The Eagles’ undefeated season was on the line and SU had everything to gain.
The Eagles worked the ball around and found their star player, Sam Apuzzo, in front of the net. She faked twice and fired a shot into the lower left corner of the net. It halted an SU team enjoying one of its best performances of the season and gave it a tough dose of the reality of these two teams.
“We ended up making a few too many mistakes along the game,” head coach Gary Gait said. “It was a hell of a play.”
No. 19 Syracuse (8-8, 0-6 Atlantic Coast) dropped its third straight game as No. 2 Boston College (17-0, 7-0) won, 13-12, on a goal by Apuzzo with 1.7 seconds remaining to continue SU’s downward spiral. The Orange has now lost six of its last eight games with one of its “better games,” Gait said, resulting in another crippling loss. Syracuse is now firmly on the NCAA Tournament bubble, with another loss clinching SU’s first losing regular season record in program history and possibly causing SU to miss the tournament for the first time in 12 years.
“They’re a team that’s undefeated,” Gait said. “They got a lot of swagger going.”
The differences were glaring from the get-go. The only comparable category between the two teams on opposite ends of the country’s powers is offense, where Syracuse ranked 11 spots lower entering the game and scores 1.46 fewer goals per game than the Eagles. The others mostly favor BC: Syracuse ranked 13 spots lower in assists, 50 spots lower in caused turnovers, 55 lower in draw controls, 52 lower in ground balls, 19 lower in save percentage and 86 lower in save percentage.
A declining SU team faced a big test against the Eagles, who hadn’t lost a game this season. But when the game began, none of that showed.
“I don’t ever feel like the underdog,” Gait said.
SU hardly found itself out of the game. When BC started the game with three unanswered goals, the script already seemed set, but the Orange responded with three of its own to tie the game. The pattern continued: BC scored four straight and SU did the same right after. The Eagles scored three consecutive goals and the Orange matched them again.
Boston College added one more to go up by one, but then Syracuse tacked on another two. The Orange, then, led the team it begun the game inherently behind.
“They got a few, then Asa (Goldstock) makes a stop and we go the other way,” Gait said. “It’s just the way the game goes, it’s usually a game of runs and today was certainly no exception.”
For the struggling Orange to capture a win over the toughest opponent it’s played all season, it would need its defense to clamp down for the final 5:19.
But the Eagles were too much.
The game-winning goal was Apuzzo’s fifth of the game and her eighth point. Playing a player-down and with Apuzzo moving off-ball, Gait said the Orange was hard-pressed to faceguard her on the final play, which has worked so well against the Orange in the latter part of the season. Apuzzo, the player whom the Orange had scouted and prepared for, made easy work of the Orange and on the other side, Nicole Levy — one of SU’s most dynamic offensive talents — was shutout for the third time in five games.
The loss leaves SU still starving for a conference win with just one regular season game remaining. A loss in the Orange’s final game against Louisville, a “must-win,” Gait said, could signal the end of the road for a Syracuse team that still hasn’t found an answer.
“I don’t think there’s such thing as a good loss,” Gait said. “They just made some plays, some fantastic plays, that were tough for our defense to stop. We stopped them all (game) long and they made a few plays at the end.”
Published on April 19, 2018 at 8:42 pm
Contact Michael: mmcclear@syr.edu | @MikeJMcCleary