Syracuse Falls to Harvard in 11-Goal Contest, 6-5
By Max Gifford | @GiffMD
No. 10 Syracuse field hockey combined with No. 14 Harvard for 11 goals, as the Crimson edged the Orange 6-5 in Cambridge. SU and HU took the lead five different times and the two were tied four times all game.
The contest featured a score-filled first half with eight total goals. Harvard’s Sage Piekarski got the Crimson on the scoreboard first five minutes into the game. In the waning time of the first 15 minutes, Eefke van den Nieuwenhof and Willemijn Boogert put up two goals and helped propel Syracuse into the lead on two goals in 20 seconds. Harvard went into the half-hour break up 5-3 after scoring twice in the final 90 seconds of the frame. Those were two of four Crimson goals in that 15-minute span.
After surrendering five goals on the first five HU shots, SU backup goalkeeper Abby Neitch came into the game to relieve Brooke Borzymowski. Borzymowski would eventually come back into the match in the 4th quarter. The junior only made one save to the Crimson’s Tessa Shahbo’s eight saves.
In the third quarter, both Syracuse and Harvard were held scoreless after play was neutralized and neither team let the other get any chances in their respective attacking ends. There were only two shots in that entire frame, both of which were ripped far off the mark by the Orange.
It wasn’t until the 50th minute when the Orange struck gold when Charlotte de Vries picked up a rebound to cut the deficit, and two minutes later, van den Nieuwenhof scored her second penalty stroke goal in as many games, which knotted the contest at five a piece. Five minutes later, Harvard would get its go-ahead goal after Syracuse surrendered two consecutive penalty corner chances and the first score of the second half after Bronte-May Brough finished a pass from HU leading scorer Emily Guckian.
That would be enough to give the Crimson a top-10 victory as the Orange had three subsequent APC chances at the end of the game and couldn’t convert on any of them.
Syracuse finishes its weekend in Boston 1-1, but it stays on the road next weekend, as the Orange visit the Garden State to face Princeton with first push set for noon.
