#11 Syracuse attack shut down in loss to #7 Maryland

Syracuse, N.Y. – On Friday night, Maryland women’s lacrosse (1-0, 0-0 Big Ten) goalie JJ Suriano might as well have been a wall.

No. 11 Syracuse could not find a way to put one past the Maryland netminder, and it was the No. 7 Terps who went into the Dome and won the season opener 9-5.

For Syracuse head coach Regy Thorpe, the offense just wasn’t good enough.

“At the end of the day, we’ve got to bury some of those shots,” Thorpe said. “You look at the stats, and you hang 38 shots and eight or nine 8-meter opportunities, usually you’re on the positive side of the ball. It’s an area we’ve got to clean up.”

Suriano saved 16 of 21 shots faced and set a new career-high in save percentage (76.2%). The Orange offense had no answer.

“JJ is a great goalie, and we knew that going into the game,” SU midfielder Molly Guzik said. “Coach talks about it all time. We get a lot of opportunities, but we need to be more efficient. And tonight, we didn’t do that.”

“We’ve gotten the opportunities, it’s just really capitalizing,” fellow midfielder Caroline Trinkaus said. “I think the flow of the offense was good, we’ve just got to make adjustments from here on out.”

“[Suriano] is a great goalie, like Molly said, but we’ve just got to learn from it.” Trinkaus added.

The SU attack is back at it next Friday when No. 1 North Carolina comes to town. The defending national champions come to the Dome at 2:30 p.m. on Friday.