After his Syracuse women’s hockey team recorded a weekend sweep over Niagara, its first win since Nov. 1, head coach Paul Flanagan started snooping around Tennity Ice Pavilion. As he approached reporters, he explained that he was jokingly looking for a broom, to symbolize the first sweep in conference play.

‘It’s been a long time coming,’ Flanagan said. ‘When we started this thing, we didn’t know if there would be one this year (CHA win), and had we faltered this weekend and not played well, I think that our confidence would have been on edge.’

Syracuse swept Niagara by wining 2-1 Friday night and 3-1 Saturday.

As the horn resonated through Tennity Ice Pavilion Saturday and several fans leapt atop the boards circling the ice, the Syracuse University women’s ice hockey team (5-13-3, 2-11-3 CHA) converged on goalie Lucy Schoedel.

But the win didn’t come easily, as the squad had to hold Niagara (4-18-4) scoreless over the last minute despite a rare 6-3 disadvantage.

As a result, minutes prior to the ruckus Schoedel relayed an all-important message to her teammates, with 40 seconds remaining on the clock.

‘I don’t care what it takes,’ Schoedel said, ‘We are doing everything we can to win this game.’

The Orange did just that and more over the final minute as the Purple Eagles fired away on the Syracuse trio and Schoedel, but to no avail.

The close of the period was the exclamation point to an almost flawless third period for the Orange.

At the 4:51 mark of the period, Syracuse took the lead for good thanks to a beautiful wrister from Gabrielle Beaudry that found the back of the net, Beaudry’s first goal of the season.

Beaudry and Schoedel were ecstatic with the team’s play in the period.

‘It showed a lot of heart and character to come back in that third period and play the way we did,’ Beaudry said. ‘I almost teared up a little bit, I was pretty impressed.’

‘We came out and played with a lot of composure and a lot of desperation, and that is something we really can use in situations like that,’ Schoedel said.

The team’s play in that final period came after a relative lack of success in the preceding two periods. The Purple Eagles outshot the Orange, 30-9, during the first 40 minutes while holding Syracuse scoreless from the 25-second mark of the first period until Beaudry’s goal halfway through the period.

Syracuse head coach Paul Flanagan said Stefanie Marty’s goal mere seconds into the game actually had an adverse effect on the Orange over the next two periods.

‘Sometimes it’s human nature to become laid-back when you get on the board early,’ Flanagan said. ‘It can be the kiss of death, we didn’t respond well we took some undisciplined penalties and it almost cost us.’

Despite the emotional win Friday night, the Orange put up an even better showing hours later, as the squad secured the sweep with a 3-1 victory Saturday morning.

The theme of Saturday’s game revolved around the fact that the team succeeded on special teams, an aspect of the game that has been hindering the team over the last two weeks.

‘It was good for us to have success,’ said senior Nikki Leone after securing one of her signature slap-shot goals on a power play. ‘We worked hard on that five on three. We haven’t been producing on them all year, so it was great to come out and succeed in that situation.’

For the weekend series, Syracuse switched up its approach to special teams in an effort to hopefully have more success. Leone, who is usually the quarterback on special teams, switched to the point and partnered with Lisa Mullan.

‘Switching up the power play got them on the back of their feet a bit,’ Leone said.

A period later, captain Julie Rising put the final touches on the weekend with 14.5 seconds left, thanks to an empty-net goal from the opposing blue line.

And seeing that these two teams will likely meet again in the CHA playoffs, Flanagan feels this confidence gained will prove important.

‘There is a very good chance that these teams will play again,’ Flanagan said. ‘So hopefully, if we play them again, our kids will be like, we tied them twice and swept them, so we should beat this team.’

aolivero@syr.edu

Published on February 1, 2009 at 12:00 pm