Syracuse unable to score equalizer in season-ending NCAA Tournament loss

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Ange Bradley toed the sideline, stuffed her hands into her coat pockets and crouched down. As the fourth-period clock evaporated, along with Syracuse’s season, the entirety of Bradley’s team was now adjacent to her, all pressing to score a goal and retie Sunday’s second-round NCAA tournament match. With a little over one minute remaining, Bradley took out Brooke Borzymowski to go empty net and subbed in midfielder Claire Cooke into Syracuse’s offensive line.

With a heaved ball that entered Syracuse’s side, Maryland’s defense was able to burn out the clock and seal the match. In a game where Maryland limited Syracuse to just two shots on goal and three corners, SU couldn’t pull out after equalizing the Terrapins’ sole goal during the beginning of the fourth period. With Maryland midline — stacked with All-Big Ten talent such as Brooke DeBerdine — shutting down Syracuse’s offense, the Terrapins’ will enter into their 20th final four in program history.

With Sunday’s loss, Bradley has been in the same place five times before. Now at nine quarterfinal appearances, Bradley has advanced to the NCAA Tournament’s semifinals four times during her time at Syracuse. And against Maryland, the team that Bradley served as an assistant coach within the late ‘90s before coaching at Richmond and then later SU, Sunday resulted in her fifth quarterfinal exit.

Streaks, from low-efficiency corner scoring to a nine game-winning one, carried Syracuse’s season and planted them back in a spot that they haven’t been in since 2016 — a year after it won the NCAA championship. At the start of the season, Syracuse was coming back from a 2020 year that contained COVID-19 protocols and an 8-8 record from conference play. And in the beginning of 2021, with a 2-2 record, including back-to-back losses against both Kent State and Rutgers, Bradley’s program seemed to still be in the midst of its rebuilding process after it peaked in 2015.

The Orange then won against then-No. 12 UConn, won against then-No. 3 Boston College and began to thread a nine-game winning streak they haven’t achieved since their championship year — when they went undefeated in the regular season. A defining 5-0 shutout against North Carolina proved that Syracuse’s post-championship roster had finally matured. Syracuse shot an inefficient and streaky rate, averaging 17.7 shots per game but only 3.30 goals. Still, with a generation of offensive-minded players such as Eefke van den Nieuwenhof, Hailey Bitters and Pleun Lammers, who all totaled 26 goals throughout the year, Syracuse ended the 2021 regular season as a top-10 team in the country.

With Lammers out on the sidelines from an injury toward the end of the season, SU eventually lost to UNC in the second round of the ACC Tournament. Questions began to pop up if the junior forward and Syracuse’s key offensive cog would return again when it came to the NCAA Tournament. But at College Park, Maryland, Lammers stayed on the sidelines. Syracuse still had a strong offense without her, and it coasted through the first round with a 4-1 win against No. 4 Penn State.

On Sunday, as Cooke teed off the ball to start the game, Syracuse’s offense without Lammers showed up again. SU had crisp passing at the beginning of the first half, limiting Maryland’s offense to just one shot on goal, but it couldn’t generate any offense of its own — even when it got past Maryland’s midfield. Passes from Laura Graziosi entered into Maryland’s shooting circle but either they missed or Quirine Comans couldn’t fully control them. SU’s only shot of the half was a Hailey Bitters shot that went wide left with five minutes remaining in the first period.

Kyler Greenwalt outran Florine van Boetzelaer and approached Syracuse’s shooting circle three minutes into the third period, though. Hope Rose circled in, passed the ball into the front of Syracuse cage and to Anna Castaldo, who tapped it into the net. Maryland kept on cracking Syracuse’s defense, letting off eight total shots throughout the period. Five of them, including Castaldo’s shot, were all on goal.

In the fourth period, Syracuse equalized the score after gaining a penalty corner off a Maryland-kicked ball, with SJ Quigley going in for just the second time in the entirety of Sunday’s match. A Tess Queen set-up and van den Nieuwenhof forehand shot into the left side of the cage gave SU a tie it would only hold for a minute. Bibi Donraadt’s tap-in goal gave the Terrapins a lead they would hold onto for 12 minutes.

When Maryland’s final clear effectively ended the game and Syracuse’s season, the camera panned toward three SU seniors — Graziosi, Quigley and Queen — hugging together somberly.