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Twenty-five players remember it. Heck, even two coaches do. That sunny Mother’s Day Sunday felt so dreary it felt like the rain poured down despite there not being a cloud in the sky.

Reese Stadium in New Haven, Connecticut, was a familiar sight last year. It wasn’t an issue in the Friday game. In fact, it brought Syracuse’s best game in over a month during a desolate patch, floating around .500. But when the Orange played the hosts — Yale — it all came crashing down.

Fast forward a year, and it’s all too familiar. Unseeded, heading to another host location in Annapolis, Maryland. Friday was never going to be an issue, even though SU went 1-4 on that day of the week this season.

But in the second round of the NCAA Tournament Sunday against the hosts — Navy — it all came full circle with the same result.

Here are observations from Syracuse’s (14-6, 7-3 Atlantic Coast) 11-10 season-ending overtime loss to No. 6 seed Navy (20-1, 8-1 Patriot League) in the second round of the NCAA Tournament:

Late collapse

Navy’s Alyssa Chung was the catalyst behind Navy’s second-half resurgence. The entire Midshipmen team seemed to flip a switch in the final two quarters.

Whatever it was — perhaps a goalie switch — Syracuse took its foot off the pedal, and Navy looked like a different team in the second half. The Midshipmen trailed 9-3 at halftime and couldn’t figure out how to stop the Orange in the second quarter, when Caroline Trinkaus scored four of their six goals.

But when the pressure got to Navy, it woke up and played like its season was on the line — which it was. It took the Midshipmen nearly 10 minutes to get on the board in the second half, but Emma Kennedy managed to. Then, after Molly Guzik seemed to put the game out of reach by completing her hat trick, Navy piled on more.

Chung and Maggie DeFabio closed the quarter with scores, and the pair did it again to start the fourth to make it 10-7. SU’s defense had stood on its head all season, but couldn’t figure out how to stop Navy in the clutch. Chung piled on a hat trick, and Anna Gotterup knotted the game heading into overtime.

For a team that had conceded double-digit scores just three times all season, it came as a shock. More surprisingly, they all came in an abrupt bunch, and Navy got it done when it mattered most, courtesy of Chung in overtime.

Limiting Chung for 1 half

Glance at the five players on the Tewaaraton Award finalists list, and you’ll see some familiar faces. The Orange have faced North Carolina’s Chloe Humphrey and Northwestern’s Madison Taylor. You’ll also see Navy’s Chung.

One thing SU succeeds at is neutralizing players like that. Taylor was blanked to her lowest point total of the season in the Wildcats’ loss to the Orange this season, with just one garbage-time goal.

Chung, entering Sunday with 106 points, was supposed to be the engine behind a Navy team favored to beat Syracuse. Hat tricks and six-point performances are the standard for her, but it took a long time for her to get going.

In fact, after the sophomore’s assist on the game’s first goal, she didn’t record another point, whiffed on four shots and coughed up four turnovers in the rest of the first half.

But she rebounded mightily in the second half with a woman-up score late in the third quarter. The attack followed that up with another to trim SU’s lead to two and had another free-position chance to cut it to one, setting up the ludicrous finish.

And what better way to end it all with the overtime-winning goal off a low bouncer to advance to the NCAA Semifinals.

Playing from behind

SU doesn’t often have its back against the wall. Take its five losses ahead of Sunday as evidence. But in those games, it didn’t strike first.

Sometimes, like against Northwestern, the Orange avoided a 1-0 deficit affecting them in the long run. But 2-0? You’d think history would repeat itself.

You’d be wrong on Sunday, but nobody could blame you for thinking so. Over halfway through the first quarter, Syracuse has nothing going for it, down 2-0.

Not only did the Orange patch that wound, but they went above and beyond to secure a 9-3 lead at halftime. Trinkaus ran rampant with four goals, and on many of them, went untouched. Guzik opened the comeback with a pair of scores, too.

Outside of those two, it was a collective effort with Mileena Cotter, Mackenzie Rich and Emma Muchnick lighting up the scoring column in the first half, flipping the game on its head. But that only went so far, as Navy closed the game on a 7-0 run, ultimately rendering SU’s early comeback useless.

Trinkaus’ 4 goals in 8 minutes

It’s only been a month since Trinkaus last ran wild with a hat trick against Notre Dame, including the game-winning quadruple-overtime score. So, it was uncharacteristic of her to be held to one goal across her next three games.

In the ACC Tournament, it was Muchnick who led the scoring, totaling seven goals. But in the NCAA Tournament thus far, Trinkaus has stolen the show.

Not only did she end Friday with three goals, but Sunday’s reign happened in an eight-minute span in the second quarter. With SU only up 3-2, it needed a spark now that the Midshipmen had figured out that they needed to mark Guzik after she scored twice.

That’s when Trinkaus went to work. Muchnick had an indirect free-position opportunity just over 30 seconds into second-quarter play. The senior opted to pass forward on the left flank, where Trinkaus stood, and the sophomore ripped a shot immediately after to extend the Orange’s advantage to two.

After Navy fought back with its own free-position score, Trinkaus took the game and ran with it, taking the ball at the top of the 12-meter fan and flinging it into the top-right corner for SU’s longest score of the day to extend its lead to 5-3.

Rich scored a minute later, and in the next minute, who else? Trinkaus spun on the left flank with her back to the goal and charged forward. And a minute after that, the Ridgefield, Connecticut, native struck again in a 1-on-1 tango with Tiana Griffin to seal her impeccable quarter.

But, like everything else SU did offensively, it’ll be overshadowed by its season-ending fourth-quarter collapse.

Published on May 10, 2026 at 4:01 pm
Contact Jason: jaglick@syr.edu | @jason_glick