Syracuse Overcomes Poor First Quarter to Win at Pitt

Syracuse made just one of its first 18 shots and trailed by eight after the end of the first quarter. A strong third quarter performance paced the Orange's comeback and they held off the Panthers in the fourth on their way to a 71-67 win at Pittsburgh. The win improves Syracuse's record to 11-4 (8-4) while Pitt dropped to 4-7 (2-6).

The Orange is off until Thursday when they play at Florida State.

Freshman center Kamilla Cardoso led Syracuse with 22 points and eight rebounds on 7-14 shooting. She was also 8-11 from the free throw line. Guard Kiara Lewis also added 22 points and dished out four assists.

Lewis was aggressive all afternoon attacking the rim, and was able to get to the free throw line 12 times. She made 10 of those attempts.

Syracuse jumped out to a quick 5-0 lead, but went nearly 12 minutes of game time without making a field goal after that. That led to Pittsburgh getting out to a 15 point lead early in the second quarter. That is when the Orange snapped out of their funk and took control of the game.

Over the final nine minutes of the second quarter, Syracuse outscored Pittsburgh 23-9 to trim the Panthers lead to just one. The two teams would battle back and forth for most of the third quarter, before Kiara Lewis scored four straight points in the final 36 seconds of the third to give the Orange its first lead since 5-4.

Syracuse continued their surge with six straight points to start the fourth and appeared to be poised to put the game away. The Panthers had other plans. Pitt continued to put pressure on Syracuse and even trimmed the lead to one with 53 seconds remaining. Syracuse hit their free throws over the final minute and got key defensive stops to hold off the Panthers.

Tiana Mangakahia only had five points, all of which came in the fourth quarter at critical times. When Pitt cut the lead to two with under four minutes left, Mangakahia drilled a three to push the advantage back to five. With 29 seconds left, she made a pair of free throws to extend the lead to three.

Emily Engstler did a bit of everything off the bench, scoring 13 points, grabbing eight rebounds, dishing out two assists, and adding three steals with two blocks.

Pittsburgh outrebounded Syracuse 42-34, including 20 offensive rebounds. That led to a 23-13 second chance point advantage, that allowed the Panthers to make up for shooting just 34% from the floor.

After shooting 1-18 to start the game, Syracuse shot 55.5% the rest of the way.