What. A. Game.
Holy hat. From start to finish, this matchup did not disappoint. After Syracuse went up 5-0 with 14:41 to play in the first half, it looked as though it would be a one-sided affair. Boy, was that far from reality. Sure, the Orange pretty much dominated for the majority of the first half, but Boston College was slowly easing their way back into the game after Covie Stanwick's goal, her 44th of the season, with 13:31 to play. Before the halftime whistle, the Eagles were only down by three, the score 8-5. Sarah Mannelly had three of the five goals that half.
Mannelly gave BC its sixth goal of the game not even 1 1/2 min into the second half. Lisa Rodgers answered right back for Syracuse a little over a minute later. The Eagles pulled to within one goal off of consecutive goals by Kenzie Kent and Mannelly. Syracuse answered right back, but shortly after, BC tied the game at 10-10. For the remainder of regulation, the teams would go back-and-forth, each scoring three more goals before the final horn sounded.
Then, our hearts really began to palpitate because the game would be decided in overtime. The Eagles won the draw control and slowed the pace to a stall, a style all too familiar to the Orange in recent years. Each overtime period consists of two halves that last three minutes, which is why I'm sure most people watching thought the game went to three overtimes. Anyway, BC waited until the last few seconds and tried to squeeze one past Richardson, but she stopped it and controlled it for the remaining two ticks of the clock. In the second half of the first overtime, the Eagles won the draw again, and used the same stalling tactic to draw the Syracuse defense, which had been phenomenal all night, out wide. Instead of scoring, BC ended up turning it over with 12 seconds to go, giving Syracuse a sliver of a chance to sprint down to the other end of the field and score. Alas, that was not meant to be. To OT number two!
Every OT period after the first is "sudden death" aka the heart tends to beat even faster. This time around, Syracuse won the draw. Instead of stalling, they used their normal pace to create space for a goal. With a little under two minutes on the clock, Tewaaraton Award finalist Kayla Treanor brought the ball around the back of the net, put it in the bottom corner, and raised her hands in celebration as the rest of her teammates hugged her and the bench rushed the field. It was a hard fought much deserved victory.
Key Players
There were several players on each team that either had hattricks or more. For the Eagles, the star was midfielder Sarah Mannelly. After her team went back down by four in the first half, Mannelly put the team on her back and scored three goals from the 9:01 point on. She also started things off in the second half and scored another, ending her night with five goals. Fellow midfielder Kenzie Kent was a second half star, scoring four goals after only putting one in the net in the first half. Zoe Ochoa had four saves on 14 goals for BC.
For Syracuse, three players scored the majority of the goals. Halle Majorana had two in the first half and two in the second, a four goal total for the evening. Junior attacker Kayla Treanor played with her usual consistency, scoring three goals, the most important of them all in 2OT. Lisa Rodgers was the surprise of the game. At the start, she had come in with six total goals on the season. She ended up scoring three just in this game alone. It was great to see. On the draw, Kailah Kempney won 12, compared to the entire BC total of 14. The defense played very well, giving Kelsey Richardson a good amount of breathing room and allowing her to make six saves in the first half alone and 11 total on 13 goals.
Up Next...
After their quarterfinal win, the Orange will now square up against Duke, the number-2 seed in the tournament. The last time around, Syracuse lost a tough one-goal game to the Blue Devils. It's another revenge rematch! The game is slated to start at 3:00 p.m. EST, but it will all depend on how the first semifinal with UNC vs Notre Dame fares.
G'Orange!