Syracuse had just let its led slip away for the second time, and it seemed poised to do so for a third.

The Orange had used a 5-1 run to take a two-goal lead into halftime, but now it was reeling. Coming out of the break, two of Syracuse’s sticks were deemed illegal. SU, whistled all afternoon for 53 total fouls, had to kill off two minutes down two players, one being Tewaraaton-finalist Kayla Treanor.

Northwestern scored with two seconds left on the penalties, then tied the game minutes later when Sheila Nesselbush put away her third goal of the day. Groans from the stands became audible, the usually-animated sideline hardly moved and history — SU had beaten NU twice in 14 tries — wasn’t with the Orange.

But 41 seconds after Nesselbush’s goal, All-American Halle Majorana tipped the seesaw back in the Orange’s favor. The score added to her team-leading total and began the 5-0 run that helped No. 2 Syracuse (5-0) outlast No. 7 Northwestern (1-2), 16-12, in the Carrier Dome on Sunday. The Wildcats threatened to barge back into the game late after the run made it 13-8, but that spurt proved too large a barrier as NU never reached 13 goals.

“We were fired up,” SU head coach Gary Gait said. “This was a great win for us. We’ve had a lot of losses to them in the past and it was nice to step up and finish this game.”

Syracuse began with three goals in as many minutes, and it seemed as if the Orange would dominate like it had in its four games this season. But Northwestern wrested back control, helped by an own goal by SU goalkeeper Allie Murray, by holding one of the nation’s best offenses without a shot for nearly 10 minutes. Simultaneously, NU went on a 5-0 run and put SU in a two-goal hole, the deepest of its season.

Syracuse then gave up its lead at the start of the second half, but got it back with the run.

“They were able to capitalize,” Northwestern head coach Kelly Amonte Hiller said. “When we gained some momentum (at the end of the first half), we let down and that really hurt us. Each time we got momentum, their key people stepped up.”

Amonte Hiller’s statement held true for most of the afternoon, and when Majorana began the run with 23 minutes left.

When she scored, the normally-subdued Gait pounded his left hand against the head of the orange lacrosse stick in his right.

He’d been animated all afternoon. Moments earlier, he and assistant coach Regy Thorpe became furious, jumping up and down and yelling, when Gait said he saw an official ignore Northwestern’s use of an offside substitution. But he quickly returned to his usual measured pacing and light claps as his players pulled away. Treanor, his best player, said that while SU got the same good chances all afternoon, finishing them distinguished the run.

But, contradictory to Amonte Hiller, it was players outside the usual rotation who helped sustain the offensive spurt.

Two goal came from Taylor Gait, who to that point had only played in three of SU’s four games and scored two goals. Both goals Sunday came on nearly identical plays. Taylor faked her defender to the left, then cut hard to the middle and received a pass from Erica Bodt. Then, in a quick turn-and-fire motion, Gait helped SU fortify its third lead after coughing up the first two.

Nicole Levy, a freshman who Gait said struggled shooting in her first weekend, doubled the number of her career goals with the other two tallies in the 5-0 run. Levy’s first goal continued a 2-minute, 45-second span in which SU scored three times to widen its lead to 12-8, a deficit Northwestern never overcame. Her last concluded the run.

“(Syracuse) saw some holes in our defense,” Amonte Hiller said. “They found them and just put away the opportunities.”

Published on February 28, 2016 at 5:39 pm

Contact Sam: sjfortie@syr.edu | @Sam4TR