After more than five years of defeating opponent after opponent at home in the regular season, Syracuse’s winning streak ended Saturday night against Boston College.

The No. 4 Orange had plenty of opportunities throughout the game, outshooting its opponent 16-12, but failed to capitalize. SU’s first regular-season home loss since getting beat by Princeton on Sept. 6, 2009, also gives the Orange its first losing streak since Oct. 25, 2007. The loss is forcing the Orange to reflect after a game in which it narrowed its numerous looks at goal.

“We need to regroup and kind of talk about what it means to wear this jersey,” junior co-captain Emma Russell said Saturday. “I think, at times, we just get too frantic and we lose sight of the moment.”

Russell believes the lack of help she and teammate senior Lauren Brooks received when they had breakaway chances contributed to the loss.

SU has been practicing breakaways last week in practice, she said, but on Saturday the players just didn’t execute what they learned.

The team had other close-range misses, too.

The closest came in the second period, when co-captain Katie Nearhouse found senior Jordan Page with some space in the circle. Page slammed the shot toward the goal and it looked to be heading into the corner when it bounced off the far crossbar back into the field of play.

“I think today, a problem for us was, yeah we got a lot of breakaways, but we were on our own,” Russell said. “We need to develop somewhere where we also have a passing option. A lot of the time we only had the shot. It’s great that we are creating those opportunities, but we just need to get another player in the game.”

Winless in a conference with eight teams in the top 15, Syracuse’s season only gets harder when it faces No. 10 Virginia on Friday, hoping to avoid an 0-3 start in-conference.

“Winning is always important, so its really important that we bounce back,” head coach Ange Bradley said. “Right now we’re in last place in the league. That’s a position we have got to get ourselves out of. We are fighting for our lives right now.”

Published on September 24, 2014 at 3:00 am

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