Syracuse Dominates Harvard to Advance in NCAA Tournament
By KJ Vaughn SYRACUSE, N.Y. — The Syracuse Field Hockey team officially started its title defense on Saturday in the opening round of the 2016 NCAA tournament. The Orange took on 15th ranked Harvard.
Emma Lamison started the scoring off for ‘Cuse, scoring off of a rebound early in the first half. The Crimson would respond a few minutes later off of a shot by Maddie Earle to knot the score at 1.
That is as close as Harvard would come to the win as Syracuse closed out the rest of the 1st half on a 4-0 run to make it 4-1. A highlight from the first half was Liz Sack who scored two goals for the Orange, one of them being a shot off of a rebound that Sack scored from her knees.
Opening up the 2nd half, Harvard continued to try and pressure the Orange by running their press defense to no avail as Syracuse continued its great passing. ‘Cuse cushioned its lead with a goal by Erin Gillingham off of a rebound with just over 20 minutes left in the game.
From that point on, Syracuse was content to just play a possession game and keep the ball away from the Crimson. Harvard did get a chance late in the game to make the score a little closer off of a penalty corner but SU’s Claire Webb stole the ball before Harvard could get the shot off and passed it up field to Annalena Ulbrich.
The Orange were unable to capitalize on the turnover because of a block at the other end of the field by Harvard’s defense.
Liz Sack performed well for the Orange, scoring 2 goals and having 3 shots on goal. For the Crimson, it was Maddie Earle, who scored the only goal for Harvard off of just 1 shot on goal.
Syracuse went on to beat Harvard by a final of 5-1, and advance to the next round of the NCAA tournament tomorrow at J.S. Coyne Stadium.
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