Strong second half for Danes
Great Danes’ rally falls short, but team is encouraged after loss to thirdranked Syracuse Orange.
The Syracuse women’s lacrosse program entered John Fallon Field on Tuesday as the third-ranked team in the country and looked every bit the part in the first half by building a 12-0 lead over the University at Albany at halftime.
Great Danes head coach Katie Rowan, a Syracuse alumna and the program’s career points leader, did her best to encourage her team at intermission.
“We just had to stay confident,” Rowan said. “We had to believe and just have fun and chip away.”
The Great Danes outscored the Orange in the second half, though they still fell well short of Syracuse in a 16-6 loss.
Regardless, Ualbany felt the second-half performance against one of lacrosse’s heavyweights was something to build on heading into the final three America East regular-season games.
“I think it’s really cool,” Ualbany freshman midfielder Katie Pascale said. “We’ve been playing for that Top 20 bid, and they’re the best of the best. They’re that top three team in the entire country and I think it’s really cool to play them and see we can compete with them and we can play with them and see the things we need to get better at. I think there’s a lot of takeaways from today’s game and how we can get better moving forward.”
The Orange improved to 14-0 all-time against Ualbany. It was Syracuse’s first trip to Ualbany since the 2016 season.
Even though it’s an annual game, Pascale acknowledged the team had some “jitters” entering the game and was unaccustomed to a defense like the Orange’s, which applies high pressure.
“But I think we really settled down in the second half and stopped worrying about what they were doing and focused on what we were doing,” Pascale said.
Ualbany (8-5) ran off the first five goals of the second half, including two by Pascale and two by Kyla Zapolski, to get within 12-5 with 19:07 to play.
Great Danes senior Kendra Harbinger of Clifton Park, who added one assist, said she appreciated having Syracuse come to campus after playing them three straight years at the cavernous Carrier Dome.
“Past years, in the Dome, it’s a lot,” Harbinger said. “It’s a big dome, the announcer, and we’re in their house. But it was really nice being on our field today, having homefield advantage for the first time, at least since I’ve been here. It’s been a good experience and I think it was a
really good learning game for us and only made us better and from here on out, we’re going to see our mistakes in this game and hopefully fix them when we have big games like Stony Brook coming up.”
Ualbany plays at Umass Lowell on Sunday before a rematch with league nemesis Stony Brook on April 24.
Syracuse graduate goalkeeper Asa Goldstock, a Niskayuna native, made two saves in the first half and was replaced by Hannah Van Middelem in the second half. Guilderland’s Cara Quimby, an Orange graduate midfielder, added one assist.