The Syracuse defense held the Connecticut Huskies scoreless at halftime.

It was SU’s first halftime shutout of the season. That stifling of the UConn attack meant causing turnovers, and those turnovers turned into points for the Orange despite a slow start.

“We started off a little rusty,” said SU head coach Gary Gait.

Making the mental shift to spark the offense, the team focused on causing turnovers. By forcing 15 Huskies turnovers in the first half Friday in front of 465 in the Carrier Dome, the No. 6 Orange (4-2, 1-0 Big East) snapped the Huskies’ (6-1, 0-1 Big East) six-game winning streak, to win its first Big East game of the season, 18-7, and hand UConn its first loss of the year.

The Orange extended the all-time meeting series to 16-0 in its last regular-season matchup of the Big East rivals, winning 18-7.

After shooting just 7-for-25 in the first half, the Orange came out relentlessly, tiring out the Huskies. The Huskies had no answer to SU’s second-half onslaught of offense.

“We definitely picked it up and settled down in the first 20 minutes of the second half,” Gait said. “We played the way I thought we would from the beginning.“

Gait credits the attack and the Orange’s execution of assistant coach Regy Thorpe’s defensive plan in helping keep calm when the offense couldn’t get any of its shots off.

“I was happy that they settled down at halftime on the offensive end and refocused and started putting the ball away.” Gait said. “If the ball wasn’t going in I always told them to focus on something else.”

Senior attack Michelle Tumolo’s facilitating instincts kicked in to spark an offensive explosion. Tumolo fed the ball to sophomore Devon Collins, who found the back of the net with 25:38 remaining in the game, widening the Huskies’ deficit to 9 goals.

SU played 34 minutes and 32 seconds of shutout defense before senior Morgan O’Reilly of the Huskies scored UConn’s first goal.

Freshman midfielder Kelly Cross responded for the Orange 34 seconds later with a goal assisted by Tumolo to push the lead back to nine.

Tumolo finished with two goals and four assists.

In response to Syracuse’s hot offense, UConn pressured the Orange behind the goal.

“We haven’t really had pressure behind the goal but we get excited when we hear people are going to use that on us because it gives us the opportunity to move the ball faster,” Tumolo said.

Capitalizing on the tactic, the Orange jumped out to another 7-0 run.

Junior Alyssa Murray scored the last goal by SU’s starters and ended the game with five goals on eight shots and three assists. Syracuse improved its conversion rate to 11-for-17 in the second half, and with 10 minutes left, Gait brought on substitutes.

Alyssa Costantino replaced Kelsey Richardson in goal. Richardson made six saves and Costantino made one, allowing the Huskies to score four goals in the last 1:19 of regulation.

Though Murray is excited about the performance over UConn, the end of the game indicated SU needs to build its depth and on-field chemistry.

“They are getting opportunities but we want them to get better opportunities,” Murray said. “That has to do with knowing each other better.”

Though Murray doesn’t discredit the dominant performance, she believes working on chemistry on and off the field more will help the Orange dictate Big East play.

While Gait agrees, he is most excited to be off to a good start for Syracuse’s last season in the Big East.

Gait said: “It’s good to get back in the Big East.”

Published on March 22, 2013 at 8:39 pm

Contact Melissa: qsbronso@syr.edu