SU Field Hockey Throttles No. 23 Duke, 7-2
By Nick Luttrell
CitrusTV Field Hockey Beat Reporter
DURHAM, N.C. — It was the Quirine Comans show on Saturday as the Graduate Student made a goal in the first minute and later assisted on two other goals. Comans was one of seven players that scored a goal for the Orange.
On Saturday afternoon, No. 7 Syracuse (11-2, 4-0 Atlantic Coast) slaughtered No. 23 Duke (5-9, 0-5 ACC) 7-2, winning their ninth straight game. It was no doubt from the beginning that the Blue Devils were outmatched against a much better and more prepared Orange team.
Syracuse scored four goals in the first half that seemed to put it out of reach for Duke. Knowing that SU is one of the best defensive teams in the country, four goals seemed to be a comfortable lead for them going into halftime. But while the scoreboard showed a dominating first half by the Orange, it wasn’t exactly that in the first quarter.
After Comans’ early goal to start the game, Duke came back and put a little bit of pressure on SU goalie Brooke Borzymowski. The Freshman hadn’t seen a lot of action come her way lately until today. She had four saves in the first quarter on Duke’s four shots on goal.
The Blue Devils finished the game with six shots on goal which is tied for the highest number SU has allowed since their 5-3 win over UConn on September 12th. Borzymowski totaled three saves in that game against the Huskies.
A big improvement for SU today was penalty corner execution. The Orange were tied for second in the country in penalty corners coming into today’s matchup. Yet, a struggle for SU has been their ability to score goals off of those corners. While penalty corner goals isn’t an official statistic that is recorded, it is estimated that the Orange haven’t scored off one since at least the Sept. 17 win over Boston College.
But today, Syracuse scored two goals off of penalty corners. The first came in the 21st minute when the ball was passed to Charlotte De Vries who fired the ball at the goal and was redirected by Willemijn Boogert for the score. The second one was in the third quarter (39th minute) when Eefke Van Den Nieuwenhoff sent a fireball past the Duke goalie to put SU up 5-0 at that point.
There was also a small difference in the way Syracuse played their corners in today’s game. Most often the ball is passed in by SJ Quigley, received by Comans and shot by Van Den Nieuwenhoff or De Vries. But today, the ball was received by Tess Queen who passed it off to Van Den Nieuwenhoff or De Vries.
Perhaps the penalty corner execution problem has been solved? If so, it is now really difficult to find a weakness in this Syracuse Field Hockey team.
SU will be back at J.S. Coyne Stadium on Friday, October 22 as they will face off against No. 14 Virginia at 6pm. You can attend the game for free, watch online on ACC Network Extra, or follow along on my twitter feed for live updates.
naluttre@syr.edu | @nickluttie
