15 hours after falling to RIT at Tennity Ice Pavilion, Syracuse arose to an early wake-up call for their noon road game ninety miles away in Rochester for the second installation of their home-and-home.

Syracuse (2-10-0, 1-1-0 College Hockey America) shutout RIT (3-6-1, 1-3-0) to seal the win, 3-0. The Orange, backstopped by senior netminder Ady Cohen, blanked the Tigers to take their first CHA win of the season.

Like Friday, there was a big shot disparity between the two sides. The Orange put up 45 shots, while the Tigers could only put 12 on Cohen through 60 minutes. SU had more shots in the first period alone than RIT had all game. 

The first Syracuse goal came off an RIT slashing penalty. Mae Batherson found the rebound off the right pad of Tigers goalie Jessi O’Leary and put the puck into the wide-open net. Six minutes later, senior forward Kelli Rowswell took the pass from Emma Polaski to the left slot and threaded a perfectly-placed shot right under the glove of O’Leary to make it 2-0. 

Forward Emma Polaski later added a goal of her own to the mix, an empty netter with four minutes left in the third to clinch the game for the Orange. Syracuse played a much more fundamentally sound game than their last loss. Shot quality greatly improved, and the Orange were rotating the puck much more efficiently.

“Some of the things we’ve been working on, like trying to get some consistent cycling, going from one shift to the next,” said head coach Paul Flanagan after last night’s loss to the Tigers.

On Saturday, it finally came together.