Syracuse remains winless for 5th straight game in 3-2 loss to Mercyhurst
Syracuse goaltender Ava Drabyk notched 31 saves for the second straight contest, but it wasn’t enough to match the Lakers’ attack Saturday. Charlie Hynes | Staff Photographer
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Behind undefeated No. 6 Penn State, there isn’t a clear-cut second-best team in Atlantic Hockey America.
RIT has proven to be competitive, taking down Syracuse 4-1 on Oct. 25. As of Wednesday, the Tigers had the fourth-best power play conversion rate in the country. But a 4-4-1 conference record and two losses last weekend to the Nittany Lions haven’t made it a prime candidate to break through.
That leaves SU and Mercyhurst as other potential suitors. Although the Orange trailed the Lakers by four AHA points, they broke within three Friday, courtesy of a shootout victory in their 2-2 draw. Forward Heidi Knoll notched the lone tally in the penalty shuffle, while goaltender Ava Drabyk stopped all of Mercyhurst’s attempts.
Syracuse remained poised from the start and in the clutch. Stella Costabile started the scoring after 30 minutes without a tally from either side. Despite two goals from Julia Schalin, Celia Wiegand forced overtime while SU had an open net with about 90 seconds to play. That led to the freshman netminder’s shootout heroics.
It remained to be seen whether SU could continue narrowing its standings gap with Mercyhurst for the second straight day.
Instead, Syracuse (6-10-1, 4-5-1 AHA) fell even further from the pinnacle of the conference in its 3-2 loss to Mercyhurst (9-7-2, 6-3-1 AHA) Saturday. The Orange never led, despite Drabyk recording 31 saves. Goals from Charlotte Hallett and Nea Tervonen showed resiliency, both coming within two minutes of Mercyhurst tallies. Yet, a scoreless final 18 minutes of play doomed SU.
After being outlasted 43-14 on Nov. 14 and 42-14 on Nov. 15 against PSU, Syracuse came out with fire Friday. It beat Mercyhurst in the shot battle 35-33 with 12 on goal in the first period.
But on Saturday, it was all Lakers from the start. The Orange did have a strong 11-second blip with three shots on Lakers goaltender Magdalena Luggin from Sami Gendron, Jackson Kinsler and Maya D’Arcy. Still, Mercyhurst led the category 11-7 in the first period. Meanwhile, it ranks second in the AHA in shots on goal per game with 32.5.
However, Luggin had a small scare five and a half minutes into the frame. After retrieving a puck from behind the Lakers’ cage, she didn’t see Hallett skating on her blindside. Hallett jarred the puck free, but it bounced back to the blue line so Luggin could recover.
On the other end, Drabyk saw pressure with close back-to-back pecks 11 minutes in from Kate Donegan and Sofia Ljung, but she remained composed.
Her fortified play continued until the Lakers opened the scoring. SU changed up its defensive pairings, playing Wiegand with Rachel Walsh. But with under four minutes to go, they miscommunicated, both losing the puck. In came Jessica Ciarrocchi to light the lamp and give Mercyhurst a lead it never squandered.
A Holly VanNetten interference call set Syracuse up for a chance to knot things going into the break. Valiant efforts from Peyton Armstrong and Emma Gnade couldn’t squeak past the net, as eight seconds remained on the advantage going into the break.
The second period saw some déjà vu from the first. Less than three minutes in, Luggin tried corralling a puck behind her net, but this time, Syracuse actually took it away from her and controlled it. Makenna Williment tried threading the puck in from an obscured angle but missed the empty net wide.
The Orange got another chance on the woman-up advantage a minute later. Tervonen fired a shot that Jordan Blouin redirected at Luggin, who remarkably stopped it.
Back on even strength, Abby Poitras, the sister of Boston Bruins forward Matthew Poitras, laced a centering shot that Jade Maisonneuve deflected mid-air and into the back of the net to claim a 2-0 advantage.
One thing SU did well Saturday when it went down two was bounce back quickly. Less than two minutes later, Knoll blazed down the ice and unleashed a wristshot that VanNetten kicked. Hallett cheated out of her defensive stance to attack the puck and found a gaping opening to trim the Lakers’ lead to one.
Syracuse had its best opportunity at the end of the second with a Kinsler shot that Luggin stopped with 27 seconds to go.
The third frame was action-packed from the beginning. About a minute in, South Korean native Nayeon Kim flirted with the puck behind Drabyk’s cage. Kim sent the puck to Regina Metzler, got it back and punished Drabyk with a back-door finish.
Forty-two seconds later, Tervonen, with space, delivered a slapshot from the left faceoff dot into the top-right corner of the net to return Mercyhurst’s lead to one.
But that would end the scoring. Maya D’Arcy was jammed by Luggin with less than four minutes left. Drabyk kept Syracuse afloat with a pivotal save moments later on Sofia Nuutinen.
On Friday, when SU pulled Drabyk for an extra skater, it converted. That didn’t happen Saturday. A pivotal clearance by Julia Perjus ended SU’s hopes of forcing overtime on consecutive days, and it left the weekend with one AHA point.
