Syracuse head coach Paul Flanagan began to get nervous on the bench as the third period progressed. SU forward Jessica Sorensen fired a slap shot past Wayne State goaltender Delayne Brian to give the Orange a two-goal lead, but again the Warriors answered back.

Warriors forward Alyssa Baldin moved Wayne State within a goal for the second time in the game when she reduced the SU lead to one with three minutes left in the third period.

‘They played very smart,’ Flanagan said. ‘Their goaltender made some good saves, and all of a sudden, every time we got a two-goal lead, they answered back.’

But with only 36 seconds remaining, Sorensen stole the puck against the boards and created a two-on-one rush for the Orange. She fed the puck across to Kelsey Welch, who delivered a wrist shot past Brian. This two-goal lead wouldn’t be answered. SU (8-7-2, 2-0-0 CHA) went on to sweep the Warriors 5-3 in front of 140 at the Tennity Ice Pavilion Saturday.

With the game tied 1-1 entering the third period, the Orange knew it would need to punch one through to ease its worries. Although the 27-17 shot margin belonged to SU entering the final period of play, Brian enabled Wayne State (7-9-0, 1-5-0) to hang around through the first 40 minutes.

That all changed when the Orange began to crash the net in the third period. SU opened the floodgates when Stefanie Marty scored on a scrum in front of the net with 1:31 elapsed. Megan Skelly would find the net off of a rebound on a power play with 11:44 remaining to give the Orange a 3-1 lead.

‘We definitely stepped it up in the third period today,’ Skelly said. ‘I think that sometimes we get a little bit back on our heels. Wayne State is a much slower team, and we sort of adjusted to that.’

Syracuse struggled to possess the puck in the first two periods, but during the second intermission Flanagan emphasized not turning the puck over. SU came out in the final period pestering Wayne State and rarely allowing the Warriors to escape their own defensive zone. Syracuse took every opportunity to throw shots toward Brian, earning a 13-5 shot advantage in the final session.

‘As the game went on, we just kept moving our feet and doing good plays,’ Isabel Menard said. ‘We were just trying to get some shots off, and even though they blocked a lot, we were just trying to get that opening.’

As the Orange began to cycle the puck around, it found gaps in the Warriors’ defense. SU players began to swarm the net and fired the puck through gaps that hadn’t been there in the first two periods. The puck sailed off Brian’s pads, creating opportunities for Syracuse forwards. The lack of space was something that plagued the Orange in the first two periods.

‘The way they worked at it was they were blocking the shooting lanes,’ Flanagan said. ‘You got to just get that puck through. I don’t know how many times that we executed pretty well off the cycle, but we either shot it into somebody or we shot it wide off the net.’

The swell in pressure during the third period prevented the Warriors from getting many offensive chances of their own. The Orange was able to find its way through the offensive zone without problems in the third period. The pressure allowed SU to open up College Hockey America play with two victories.

‘It’s huge for us because any game we can win in the conference is just a booster,’ Menard said. ‘If we can always get our wins either home or away, I think that will be good for us leading into the league final and maybe more than that later on.’

adtredin@syr.edu

Published on December 5, 2010 at 12:00 pm