Syracuse completed its sweep of Robert Morris with another 4-1 victory Saturday afternoon.
The Orange got contributions from all different places in the win against the Colonials. Two of the leaders were Bryn Saarela, who had three points adding her total to seven on the weekend, and Allie Kelley who had 30 saves.
Head coach Britni Smith said she is happy with how the team has been able to adapt and find different ways to win this semester.
“I think it’s the way we’re finding wins right now, we’re getting multiple people jumping up and finding themselves on the scoresheet. We’ve had some wins where maybe we’ve been outplayed and we had to earn every opportunity. We’ve had some wins in which we were the better team for 60 minutes,” Smith said.
The Orange did not start strong in the second matchup against Robert Morris. They took a penalty two minutes into the game. Kelley and Jessica Cheung played key roles in killing the penalty. Kelley had multiple saves and Cheung had a blocked shot to keep the score level.
The Colonials kept coming. By the halfway point, the Colonials had nine shots to Syracuse’s three.
Coach Smith said the team needed to play better in the rest of the game.
“We were not happy with our first 10. At the 10 minute mark, we talked about, that’s not our game, let’s leave that in the past. We’ve got an opportunity right now to flip a switch and I thought our response was very good in the first period,” Smith said.
Despite the slow start, the Orange got on the scoreboard first. The goal came from the stick of Jackson Kinsler.
Kinsler’s fourth of the season was on a zone entry. The puck went out wide to Bryn Saarela, who found Kinsler on the far side. She fired a shot that beat the goalie, Maggie Hatch, to give the Orange the lead.
Syracuse wasn’t done there. Saarela, after her three-goal performance a day ago, blew one by Hatch on the power play. This time it was Kinsler who set up Saarela to expand the Orange lead.
Saarela said her key to the power play was puck movement to lead to the goal.
“I think for the power play goal, just moving it around, getting them moving, and then kind of surprising them with the low attack, kind of like yesterday,” Saarela said.
“There were some times this semester where our power play got a little bit stale. They continued to battle through it and find a way, and I think this weekend was the best we’ve looked in a while,” Smith said.
The Orange went back on the power play with a minute left in the period. Hatch made four saves to keep the game at 2-0 going into the intermission.
In a back and forth start to the second period, Robert Morris cut the lead to one six and a half minutes into the frame.
Mya Neugent scored for the Colonials. She scored on the power play on a pass from Morgan Giannone to make it 2-1.
Syracuse took another penalty halfway through the period. However, it was the Orange who took advantage shorthanded.
Saarela netted her second of the day to double the Orange lead. She received a pass from Tatum White that gave Saarela a breakaway. Saarela went forehand backhand to beat Hatch for the second time.
Saarela said she was happy with her five goal weekend.
“It was definitely a lot of fun. I haven’t done that before, it’s a lot of fun, especially doing it with this team,” Saarela said.
It stayed that way for the rest of the period. At the end of the second Kelley had 20 saves in the game.
The third period was a back and forth period. Both teams had some shots, but no great scoring chances.
Kelley stopped all 10 Colonial shots. Robert Morris switched goalies prior at the start of the third period. Lucy Phillips stopped all nine shots the Orange sent her way.
The first goal happened with under two minutes to play. Peyton Armstrong forced a turnover in the offensive zone and then put the puck in the empty net to seal the sweep for Syracuse.
The Orange play next in January. The team will travel to Minnesota to take on Minnesota Duluth in a rescheduled series from September.
The team will get a three week break before the next matchup.
“I think just trusting our teammates that they’re going to do what they need to do over break, whether that's rest or just follow the program,” Saarela said.
“They’ve earned it, they’ve really stuck to the process this semester. We had a very tough out of conference season so far and I felt like they did a really good job of just continuing to learn and get better,” Smith said.