Syracuse Rolls Over #2 Duke in ACC Home Finale

By Nicole Hansen

SYRACUSE, N.Y.– Syracuse ended its regular season home ACC slate with an emphatic 5-1 win against Duke Friday night.

Neither offense was able to string any goals together, so both teams had to resort to something else: penalty corners.

Roos Weers and Emma Lamison were big factors, each finding the net two times in the win. Head coach Ange Bradley said the team worked on shooting higher on Duke’s goalie by studying the way they defended, something that ended up working well for them.

“We haven’t really shown that at all,” Bradley said. “So we wanted Roos to give it a go.”

As for Lamison, Bradley said she’s been working on her skills as an insertion player, a role she filled very well on Friday.

“She’s always down at the other end and working on it,” Bradley said. “We made a few adjustments to her insert and we moved her up to the front end, and she’s just been patient through the process and committed to growing and getting better at a skill that she needed to get better at.”

Lamison mentioned the team had been practicing a lot on penalty corners, which helped them capitalize on so many opportunities against the Blue Devils.

“We worked all week on being able to drive with speed and throwing-and-going and getting the ball in the air, and we just, you know, executed on that and it worked well for us,” the Senior said.

Both of Lamison’s goals were tap-in goals. The Forward says sometimes it’s just a gut reaction to get it in the net.

“The ball just kind of basically came right to my stick and it’s just a quick reaction right into the goal,” Lamison said. “You don’t have time to settle it down, you just have to one-touch it right in.”

Roos Weers had one direct goal and another off the corner of the goal. The Sophomore says the reason for the success was because the team wasn’t defeating themselves.

“I think the only team we can lose from is ourselves,” Weers said. “That’s what we’ve done a few times, the game against North Carolina we lost from ourselves, and I think if we play together as a team, we’re one of the best teams in the country.”

Coach Bradley also had high praises for the defense, who held Duke to just one penalty corner goal for the game.

“We played a lot of good defense today, and we worked really hard on our defense this week,” Bradley said. “We focused on that quite a bit and from our defense, we can create a nice attack.”

Syracuse travels to Ithaca in a couple days for a Sunday afternoon game against Cornell at 3 PM.