Jessica DiGirolamo snatched the puck out of the air and dropped it to her feet. Intercepting the attempted clearance, she skated back to the center of the offensive zone and tried to feed a pass to her open teammate in front. An assist would have been her second point of the night and put Orange up two goals, but her pass didn’t connect. 

DiGirolamo and Syracuse (1-10-0, 0-1 College Hockey America) dominated their opposition in the early minutes of Friday night’s conference battle against RIT (3-5-1,1-2), but the 7-4 score hardly reflected it. Controlling play and outshooting their opponent 14-3 in the first period alone, the Orange should’ve gone into the locker room with a sizable lead on their way to a second win of the year. The score after one, however, was just 1-0, a lead the Orange would quickly lose in the second period. Despite letting up four goals in the final frame on their way to a 7-4 loss, it was the opening period – the only one they won – they may most regret.

“Those are the moments that we need to capitalize on,” forward Lauren Bellefontaine said. “In order to get that lead when we can.”

Just 1:35 into the contest, freshman Madison Beishuizen blocked a shot in the defensive zone and gathered the puck. Rushing past the two RIT defenders, she found herself on a breakaway. With a chance to take an early lead, she fanned on the shot attempt and the puck rolled wide. 

Under 10 minutes later, DiGirolamo scored the game’s first goal compliments of a pair of RIT deflections. The puck ricocheted off the Tiger forward stepping in front of her shot, and then again off a skate to the right of the crease. With RIT kicking the puck into its own net, it looked like the early bounces were going to go the Orange’s way. But that didn’t continue for the rest of the game. 

“We don’t really play well against this team,” DiGirolamo said. “We wanted to come and get a good start at the beginning, just to make sure we got some confidence going.”

Despite a late breakaway after a cross-ice Shelby Calof pass, the Orange failed to light the lamp a second time in the opening period. Eight and a half minutes after DiGirolamo’s opening goal, the score remained 1-0.

While coach Paul Flanagan criticized the team’s fundamentals and work ethic, he admitted a bigger first period could have changed the game’s dynamic.

“Obviously in hindsight it probably would have been a different ball game if we get up two or three,” Flanagan said. “Maybe they get back on their heels.”

Despite first period dominance, Flanagan said he didn’t necessarily think his squad deserved more than what they got.

“I thought we missed the net a lot,” Flanagan said. “We were shooting wide and we were shooting high.”

Ignoring the missed opportunities, having a lead is never a bad thing. It was only the third time this season Syracuse has finished the first period leading. But coming out of the locker room to play the remaining 40 minutes, it quickly became apparent the Orange hadn’t gotten enough.

RIT would out-score SU in the second period 3-2, then pile on four more scores in the final frame.

“We came back out in the second, we wanted to do the same things,” DiGirolamo said. “But things didn’t go our way.”

Published on November 2, 2019 at 12:16 am

Contact Mitchell: mbannon@syr.edu