No. 6 Syracuse Women’s Lacrosse heads to the Steel City for clash with unranked Pittsburgh
By Milo Hoffman | @mhoffnyc
Pittsburgh, PA — It was a week full of overtime games for No. 6 Syracuse women’s lacrosse. The first, a 14-13 double OT victory over 7th ranked Stanford, the most recent, a 14-13 OT loss to No. 10 Johns Hopkins. It was a breath of fresh air to see the Orange offense breakout of their slump. SU hadn’t scored double-digit goals in any of its previous three contests.
With key players out for the ‘Cuse, it has been the freshman stepping up. In the first win against No. 7 Stanford, first year’s Molly Guzick, Ashlee Volpe, Mileena Cotter, and Caroline Trinkaus combined for 7 goals. The key score came from Mileena Cotter who won it in overtime.
“I’m just so happy for her (Cotter)”, said head coach Kayla Treanor after the game, “she’s just not afraid of the big moment.”
In SU’s defeat to Johns Hopkins, it was more of the same story. Cotter, Trinkaus, and Annie Parker mustered up a combined 6 scores.
Now, as big as the offense was for Syracuse, and that could be the difference for SU as the season goes on, there were some standouts on defense. And none bigger than Coco Vandiver. The junior took home ACC and IWLCA defensive player of the week. This after Vandiver caused a career high six turnovers against Stanford and also had a personal best four ground balls. This season, Vandiver leads the ACC and is fourth in the nation with 3.14 CTO’s per game.
Next opponent
Against Pittsburgh, SU can take a little sigh of relief as it won’t be taking on a ranked opponent. It’s the first time in five games the Orange won’t battle a ranked team. The last was an 18-10 win over Cornell.
So who should SU look out for? Well, the answer is attacker Sydney Naylor. The senior has a team best 22 goals this season. But in her most recent outing, Naylor had just one goal, her lowest total this year. Attacker’s Jenna Hendrickson (18) and Moon Avery (15) are the team’s other top scorers. Unlike Naylor, Avery scored four goals in Pitt’s most recent clash with Liberty, so she is coming into this contest with momentum.
“We have to get ready to play another really good ACC team”, said SU coach Kayla Treanor.
Despite Pitt not being ranked, the Panthers head into this contest winners of three in a row, and coach Treanor know’s the Orange can’t take any games off. With the ‘Cuse dropping three of its last four, every contest is crucial from here out, especially the ones where SU is favored.
In three prior contests with Pitt, the Orange are undefeated. In those games, SU held the Panthers to just 17 goals combined… That’s under six scores per contest.
Gametime from Highmark Stadium in Pittsburgh, PA is set for 11 a.m. on Saturday. Follow @mhoffnyc on twitter for all of your live updates and coverage of this matchup.
