Syracuse Ice Hockey’s Rollercoaster 5-3 Valentine’s Day Loss to Mercyhurst

On Valentine’s Day, Love…is all around you. But here in the Mercyhurst Ice Center, so too was the tension. In Syracuse Ice Hockey’s (12-21, 10-9 in AHA) 5-3 loss to Mercyhurst (18-13-2, 13-5-1 in AHA), things were all tied up heading into the third period. ‘Cuse Head Coach Britni Smith saw a night and day difference in her squad between the first two.

“Yeah, I think the second period honestly was them taking ownership of it. You know I heard some good conversations from the locker room and they were saying the right things. I thought that they knew exactly the way we kind of let off the gas. I mean credit to Mercyhurst, I think they definitely turned it on for the last half of the first period. But, our team recognized that wasn’t our game and took ownership of it, and they really were the ones who were able to find a really good second period”

With the defeat, Syracuse has now lost all three of its matchups this year against Mercyhurst. However, they’ve only been by a combined five goals. Coach Smith says she knows exactly what it’s gonna take to get her team over that hump.

“Yeah I think it was a good conversation we had in the locker room after the game just exactly about that, ya know what’s it gonna take for us to get over the hump. Again, we allow our players to speak up and hear from them and I think that they know exactly what it takes at this time of the year. “Knowing” and “doing” are two different things and obviously it’s a lot harder to do it than it is to just talk about it. So, it’s gut check time.”

Looking ahead, Syracuse and Mercyhurst go at it in the regular season finale tomorrow. So while the Orange are looking for their first win over the Lakers since 2022, they will also try to get the ball rolling into the AHA postseason. Gametime is at 1 tomorrow. Reporting from the Mercyhurst Ice Center, Ben Chadwick, CitrusTV.