Emma Russell looked up and made eye contact with Roos Weers, who had the ball outside the circle. Cutting hard towards the net, Russell knew to anticipate a pass from Weers and stuck out her stick.

The pass bounced hard off Russell’s stick and bolted upwards off the top of the cage for Syracuse’s first goal.

“When you’re one-nil down, it’s tough. The first goal to get back into the game is really important,” Russell said. “We had chances and we knew it was coming, it was kind of the matter of the timing.”

Russell’s goal helped ignite No. 1 Syracuse (15-0, 5-0 Atlantic Coast) as it stormed back with four second-half goals to overcome a 1-0 deficit to beat No. 19 Princeton (7-5, 4-2 Ivy) Sunday afternoon at J.S. Coyne Stadium. While the aggressive Princeton defense proved hard to crack in the first half, the senior-day win marked the best start in program history.

The Orange attack looked lackluster early. The team averages nearly 10 shots in the first half, but only managed three Sunday.

Russell highlighted the man-marking of the Princeton defense as a source of trouble, as Syracuse failed to possess ball in the circle often. While advancing up field, forwards consistently had balls poked away in the midfield or find their errant passes intercepted.

During one of the few first half opportunities within the circle, Emma Lamison, who leads the team with earned corners, seemed to have generated a penalty corner for the team. But when the whistle blew with 21:35 on the clock, the penalty was on the Orange for stick obstruction and the opportunity was squandered.

“In the first half we were really sluggish,” head coach Ange Bradley said. “Princeton did an outstanding job defensively against us and I think that they wanted something a little more than we did.”

Weers couldn’t even remember the specifics of what head coach Ange Bradley said at halftime, but the team emerged from the locker room with poise. The team cleaned up its passing and after Russell’s goal, SU’s offensive jam broke loose with three more goals to bring the total to four scored in under 17 minutes.

After Alma Fenne earned a penalty corner with about 19:30 on the clock, Syracuse generated four more penalty corner chances for itself in the second half by being more aggressive with advances up the field.

Russell inserted the ball into Fenne on the stick stop before the ball moved to Lies Lagerweij. Lagerweij executed a nifty spin move to create space and passed off to Weers. Weers wound up and fired a hard back chop at the ball.

She gave a hearty fist pump, celebrating her team’s first lead.

“The energy was way better,” Weers said. “I think the moment when we started the second half, we knew it was going to be our game.”

Princeton tied the game back at two with a quick shot that snuck under goalie Jess Jecko’s leg. The Orange didn’t let the score deflate the momentum it carried, and responded by immediately advancing the ball back into the offensive half with a charge from Laura Hurff.

Hurff found a way to contribute on the scoreboard when she gave Syracuse the lead back with 13 minutes remaining. Liz Sack shot on net, Princeton’s goalie Anya Gersoff blocked it and Hurff gathered the rebound and shot herself.

The ball rocketed towards the goal, hit hard off of Princeton’s Kate Ferrara and ricocheted in.

“That?” Hurff said to some fans in the stands after being offered congratulations after the game. “That was all luck.”

The team continued to press, looking for an insurance goal. After a Princeton penalty inside its own circle led to a stroke, senior midfielder Alyssa Manley stood alone in the circle facing a Tigers player one-on-one.

Manley flicked the ball up at the right corner of the net and in to make it 4-2 Syracuse, finishing off the comeback.

“We lost the first half,” Weers said. “The feeling was that we had to make it up …and we had to work harder to bring this win home.”

Published on October 18, 2015 at 8:12 pm

Contact Liam: lpsull01@syr.edu